Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Duel Monsters GX

Like the first yugioh series I grew up watching this one. I enjoyed the slightly more complex plot and characters in this series and it was the last of the yugioh shows that I was really dedicated to as well. I enjoy rewatching sometimes but in the current world of anime there are some much better and much more recently produced shows out there for new and old anime fans. I think that if you like yugioh it is a fun watch though. It had some much more interesting story archs than the first one series. The characters also felt a bit more full and ... life-like. There are plot points that felt drawn on or unnecessary but it didn't keep the show from being interesting if you like watching the yugioh battles so the story wasn't too vital in that case. There were very memorable characters and archs, but at the same time there were some extremely forgettable moments throughout. With a series at this length there is some bad filler here and there. I would definitely not binge it but it is fun to see you're favorite character moments from time to time.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX had big shoes to fill, being the second series (and a sequel in-universe to) the iconic first season of duel monsters. It took a lot of risks to create its own identity as opposed to going the Pokemon route and recycling the characters and plot while changing the setting, which can be alienating to people who grew up on DM and likely led to its polarizing reception at the time.

On the surface, GX feels like somewhat of an affectionate parody of the original, especially in the dub. The first episodes of the first season take the premise of yugioh and largely play it ... for comedy, as it slowly edges into darker waters and deconstructs both the premise of the original show as while as the characters it built up over several seasons. While the shift in tone can feel very sudden, the show generally handles it well.

The best part of GX is definitely its characters. Most of the characters are designed to appear to be like the original cast of characters, but with a twist. The main rival acts like Kaiba at first, but the rivalry is never serious and he quickly develops his own character. The token girl of the cast actually gets to be a strong duelist, although this unfortunately isn't shown too much. In general, the characters in this show are fantastic, but the supporting cast doesn't get to advance the plot too much despite the scores of character development. Standouts include Jaden/Judai, Zane/Ryo, and Dr. Crowler, but most of the main recurring cast qualifies.

While it's difficult to say why without spoiling, the four seasons/arcs are all solid in their own ways. The first season takes a while to get going, but each of the antagonists of the arc are fun in their own way, be it comedic, threatening, or something else, and this season more than any other shows off the wide range of characters in the show as duelists, with multiple supporting characters landing plot-important wins and multiple duels. The second season is paced much better, with the story starting almost immediately and being woven into the smaller acts of the season, growing until it becomes too big to ignore in-universe and leading to some fantastic moments. The supporting cast continues to grow both in number and development, with several episodes apiece for most of them.

The third season is where the show takes a different turn. It spends the first two seasons building up its cast of characters and plot conventions, and then spends an entire season deconstructing them, especially the lead character. It's very dark, and the tone shift can be quite jarring, but it's well worth the ride once you adjust. The villain of this season can be pretty divisive, but is overall enjoyable, as are the rest of the new characters with the standout being Johan/Jesse.

The final season, which was never dubbed, is extremely difficult to talk about without spoiling anything. You'll either love it or you'll hate it, but overall I personally loved it.

While the sub is obviously the best choice, the dub for the first two seasons isn't bad and fits with the more light-hearted nature of the show at that point quite well.

And lastly, if you care about lgbt+ representation/subtext, there's a canonically intersex character, and in the sub the main character's orientation is speculated on in universe, with a ton of (barely) subtext that the dub downplayed but didn't remove.

Overall, Yugioh GX is different. Very different from the original, and if you don't like it, that's fine. But if you stick around to watch it you'll find a show that's just as good as, if not better than the original.

Is GX good? No. Is it entertaining? Hell yes! And sometimes that’s all you need. It is one of the most fun anime series I have watched in a long time. I had conversations with my friends where we quote our favorite (terrible) lines. The dialogue is corny, plot points are forgotten about, and the Ojamas…the less said the better, but that’s part of the series’ charm. How else am I supposed to Chazz it up? The only real criticisms I have are that the duels can get boring after a while and the pacing of the season-long arcs are pretty bad. The second season ... as a whole felt poorly planned. The Society of Light arc dragged on for too long while the GX tournament felt like an afterthought. Also, Chumley is an abomination upon this Earth. The sub is fine, but I don’t like it as much as the dub. I can appreciate trying to make Jaden a little older and more mature, but a lot of the fun and humor was lost. In my opinion a darker and more serious Yugioh doesn’t work.

If you were a big fan of the first series of Yu-Gi-Oh!, you probably hopped on the wagon to view the next series hoping for another mind-blowing TV show about how a child's card came could affect the fate of the world. I have to say that GX sort of delivered in that sense, but it was amazing how it transformed from some drama at an academy to games that took place in another dimension against aliens. The previous Duels Monsters (DM) series had its fair share of ridiculousness, but in doses that I could tolerate. In GX it went a little bonkers, though I'm ... told the next series is even more out of whack. It was interesting to see what the writers had in mind for the plot as it bounced from here to there.

As expected, there were tons of characters with silly hair popping in and out of the show and a few that stayed around almost all the time. A few that I think are noteworthy (besides Jaden, the protagonist, of course) are pale blue haired and kiddish Cyrus, token female duelist Alexis, and wannabe cool Chazz.

I was quite annoyed at Jaden at first. He reminded me of Joey Wheeler because he talked big but didn't look like he could duel as well as he said. However, Jaden proved me wrong almost every time. The kid can duel and he knows it. I soon got used to his lame jokes and cheesy catchphrase, "Get your game on!" I was never a fan of his bushy brown hair (and still am not), but eh, that's him for you.

Cyrus' personality and appearance made him seem like another Yugi to me, only with half the dueling skills. He tags along with Jaden on his endeavors and lives in the shadow of his older and hotter brother Zane, who is the best duelist at Duel Academy. His deck containing various modes of transportation is cute.

As always, there is one female that stands out from the lot, and that is Alexis. She is hailed as the best female duelist at the academy and the most beautiful. I'm not sure if those two factors are correlated or not, but they probably are. I was quite annoyed with her character for having that kind of attention and thought that she said many unnecessary things. Plus, she has a not-so-secret crush on Jaden, though she tries to be cool about it.

The Chazz is pretty lackluster compared to the last series antagonist Seto Kaiba, as his dueling skills are definitely not up to par. His hair is also kind of weird, if you ask me. However, I love his cockiness and sarcastic comments, and once you watch the later episodes you begin to understand his actions and find out he has a good side. He might insult his friends all the time, but he does care about them.

Now then, after going through some key characters, I think you'll have a good idea of how they tie into the plot.

The first season seemed pretty tame to me. There wasn't much except dueling in school (and no dueling after lights out!), so all there was to handle was some petty drama in between students trying to size each other up and see which dorm was the best. Here, viewers got to see how great (or not-so-great) Duel Academy was.

For a place built on Seto Kaiba's cash, though, I don't think it had much to offer. You'd think dorms were separated by academic class (first years, second years, and third years), but they were more categorized by social class and skill. Oh, and all the females were placed in the best dorm despite how well they dueled. (I think that was because Obelisk Blue was the only dorm with adequate facilities for female students.) Also, uniforms are different from dorm to dorm. Slifer Red and Ra Yellow weren't that spectacular, but Obelisk Blue boys got to wear long coats and girls wore mini skirts and sleeveless shirts. I was quite fascinated by this class distinction because it was based on the three god cards from the last series, and of course, Kaiba's favorite was Obeslisk the Tormentor.

Okay, and then in the second season things started getting a little weird. In came these enemies that harnessed the power of darkness while hiding under the guise of "The Society of Light." They wore blindingly white coats and dueled others into submission. (Don't ask me how that works; it just does.) It was a stark contrast from the first season's school shenanigans such that it seemed quite ridiculous. And don't get me started on the new protagonist's hair. (OMG.)

The next two seasons were a little lost on me with the traveling into another dimension because of some alien with a grudge on Jaden for some unexplained reason (unexplained for an entire #^$% season!), warping the rules of dueling and resulting in some personality disorders and acquisition of magical powers. Add some transfer students and other crazy people to the mix and you've got yourself many new Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes worth mentioning.

As you can see, I wasn't a big fan of how the plot played out as the series went on. It wasn't a big muddle of confusion per se, but I didn't follow it sometimes and was averse to many situations. I know as a second Yu-Gi-Oh! series they try to make it original but want to keep the success of the first series, but they put Jaden into so many life-threatening circumstances that I felt they wanted to make him into a second king of games, and that title can only belong to one person. Also, I never once binge watched this series. At many points I found it to be extremely boring; I could count the number of episodes that I thought were captivating on the fingers of two hands, I think, and this has considerably less episodes than DM.

Art and animation? Eh, it's an old series, so I guess it's good for how it was. Everybody moves the way they're supposed to. The duel monsters look pretty cool for the most part. What I found the most issues with were the appearances of the characters. I hate how some characters have the hugest muscles. Others are rail thin but have abs. The majority of women are ample-breasted. Stuff like that.

Note that this series only has the first three seasons dubbed in English. The reason for this is that they started working on the next series of Yu-Gi-Oh! before finishing this one, so the fourth season of GX is only available in Japanese. I watched it just to finish and was taken aback by how cool the soundtrack was in comparison to the American one. The Japanese one opted for some softer tracks that were pretty and light sometimes and when something cool was needed, it wasn't in-your-face rockin', if you know what I mean. Some of the voice actors were better than the ones in the English dub (like Alexis/Asuka), but others weren't (Cyrus/Sho was voiced by a girl!). Nevertheless, I loved the Japanese OP.

Now, should you watch this? If you're a Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, why not? If you haven't watched Yu-Gi-Oh! before, I guess you could try this out. If my review seems too negative, it's because I'm comparing GX to the stellar older series, but I suppose by itself GX isn't all that bad.

The characters I mentioned went through a ton of development, not only becoming better people but also improving their decks a whole lot. The animation is how Yu-Gi-Oh! is all right, nothing any more special than that. The soundtrack was so-so, but I expect the entire Japanese soundtrack is top-notch. Also, it's a curious thing to see how a children's card game can affect the fate of the world.

Like it's predecessor, 'GX' is an outstanding show. It is set after the events of duel monsters and follows a new protagonist who enters 'duel academy', a school dedicated to teaching people to duel.

Much like 'Duel Monsters' over the course of 'GX' you get invested in the characters and their stories, watching them grow as people and duellists. Watching the interactions and relationships built between characters while they undergo various challenges is a great experience.

I think to note is that the last season is not 'dubbed'. Personally after watching most of the show 'dubbed' I found it very hard to make the transition to 'subbed' ... as the new voices didn't fit the characters in my mind.

This is by far my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh series yet, and rightly so. It had done so many right things, that it is hard to look at the bad.
The thing that I dislike the most was the story, it was a generic Yu-Gi-Oh plot, not that that is a bad thing though. Yu-Gi-Oh has a fun plot, for a show to promote a game. The art is not to special, but it is still a great environment on that island. They were able to show off so many areas, and each one looks better than the last. My favorite thing were the characters and the theme. ... The theme fit it perfectly, get your game on, and I haven't watched it in years and the theme was so catchy that it is still stuck in my head. The characters all have different personalities, that they all interact, and and build off each other.

8/10 I would recommend this, if you have some free time, it is worth it.

Yu-Gi-Oh GX is a series taking place several years after the original series, which can be seen in episode one. The shows main character is Jaden/Judai Yuki, a young boy who dreams one day he will be the King of Games.
A different twist in this show that the original didn't have is that the main characters of the show (Jaden, Syrus, Chazz, Alexis, Zane, Bastion and a few others as time goes on) are school kid age like Yugi and Joey were at the time of the original Yu-Gi-Oh, however rather then be normal school students they live a school made by Seto Kaiba for ... dueling called Duel Academy.

Overall this show isn't half bad, but if you want to truly enjoy the show, I suggest you watch the subbed version of it rather than the Dub so that way you can see every episode of the series the way it was meant to be seen. I also recommend the sub since GX was canceled in the US before the end of Season 3 so the surprise Series Finale never aired here. Personally after reading some it I prefer the manga and recommend it over the show as it has a better more original story.

Definitely watch this over 5D's, when you watch it you can kind of relate from year to year of the show like I did when it first aired. Once again good series and second best in the franchise.

First of all, I came here, not to talk about the story, but to get rid of this burden after watch this series

I have a lots of comments about this one

I am a Yu-gi-oh fan, and I am the type of person who likes to see all series

I got really disapointed, unfortunately I saw this GX series in 3 languages, the first season I've downloaded in the original language (JAP) and I started to like it, but around 50th or 60th episodes, I couldn't find in Japanese, and downloaded Portuguese Version, which kinda sucks

Around 80th's I had the bad luck to encounter the disgusting version ... of Cartoon Network and 4Kids, which made me hate GX series

It's all wrong in English series, the duel card format, the soundtrack, the voices and their accents, the fuckin' american lame jokes that completely ruined the Anime scene

Well, I would love to see this one all in Japanese, but I couldn't find, so... life sucks, and that's why I scored as a 4

After this experience, I am completely against DUBBED versions

And one more thing, sorry the bad english

Childhood Nostalgia, I started of as a minor fan of the YGO series when I was young, but I became a major fan around the GX era so as it shows, GX has a place in my heart as it's what me into YGO in general and gave a great sequel (5-Ds), Jaden is a great character regardless of being cliché, the Art at the time was amazing, minus not getting Season 4 in England the Story was great, and had a nice plot twist mid Season 3 but who am I to say them, if want to get into YGO but not sure on ... the OG series, then GX is a good starting point.

Getting through GX has been quite the journey for me… Of the first three seasons—which are the ones I associate with my childhood—GX was the only one I never got into. And in the past I would have said it was because I didn’t like the Duel Academy premise or because Jaden was annoying… Or basically, I just latched onto all the most popular reasons to hate this season. Even when I decided to go back through Yu-Gi-Oh the way I had with Pokemon, I seriously considered just skipping this one… but at the end of it all, I’m really glad I didn’t.

From the ... beginning, GX had its ups and downs, but I was surprised by how much potential I saw right off the bat. The one that caught me most off-guard was Jaden himself. I was prepared to just… tolerate him all the way through, but you know what? Jaden Yuki is not the god-awful character I often see him made out to be. It’s all about context. Early on, GX’s story is mostly about the school itself. Along the same lines of shows like Baka and Test or Assassination Classroom, Duel Academy values grades above all else, and those who get placed in the lowest-scoring dorm (like Jaden) are treated like dirt. Jaden, who’s unflappably cheerful and couldn’t care less about his grades or schoolwork, is completely unfazed by this and inadvertently manages to empower many of his other classmates as he continues to succeed despite his position in their little Duel Academy society.

Unfortunately, this also leads us into one of this show’s flaws… GX had a problem with focus as a whole. The longer this series went on, the less meaning the different dorms held. So, though we see characters making disparaging comments about being a Slifer Red almost all the way to the end, it stops feeling relevant pretty early on. But it did succeed in giving me an appreciation of Jaden. He wouldn’t become a truly interesting character until year three, and he may not be the best protagonist ever created, but he was designed to be the perfect hero for these particular circumstances. And his carefree attitude started to feel like a breath of fresh air amongst his group of more serious friends.

Most of Jaden’s friends were all hindered by the same thing: they were set up to be likable characters that the series itself never spent enough time on. Honestly, I could go on and on about the potential almost every single one of them had. I loved the direction they took with Chazz. He was introduced as the new edgy, rival character, but the showrunners acknowledged very early on that no one was going to replace Seto Kaiba. (In the same way that Yugi and Jaden have very little in common past their main character charisma. I never got the impression that GX was trying to replace the original; perhaps the strongest thing it had going for it was that it was committed to being its own thing.) Chazz falls from grace very early into things and when he finds himself again, he returns as this goofy, over-the-top, complete joke of a character… but people embrace him for it, and I loved that. Even though he’s mostly pushed out of the spotlight later by some of the other characters.

I had high hopes for Alexis. She was shaping up to be a strong female character, something not exactly in abundance in my childhood shows. I liked that it was her skill that set her apart from their classmates—rather than something shallow like her beauty. She does develop a one-sided crush on Jaden, but it never completely takes over her character like you see so often in shows that are aimed more towards boys. And the mystery with her brother gave her and interesting purpose and kind of drives the plot in the beginning. Unfortunately, more than any other character, Alexis really fades into the background as the series goes on. (I really liked the role she played with the tag-team duel near the end, but it felt overwritten, almost, as Jaden learns pretty much exactly the same lesson—again—from his duel with Yugi.)

Of all the characters in the original little troupe, Syrus is the only one I never really warmed up to, and I think it’s because he’s the only one who doesn’t really have that lack-of-screen-time excuse. Syrus’s early development did catch my attention—his insecurities and relationship with his brother gave him just as much potential as everyone else. But it takes so long for Syrus to grow… And there’s really no excuse for it, because he gets several episodes devoted specifically to overcoming those insecurities… but there’s no follow-through. The next episode, he goes back to being exactly the same person he was before, excessive self-doubt perfectly intact. By the time he finally starts standing on his own mid-season three, it just felt too little, too late. Endearing me to him at that point just wasn’t in the cards.

In case it’s not already apparent, it was the characters that really drew me in to GX. The first two seasons’ plots were kind of hit or miss for me. I think season one did some interesting things—especially the twist they threw in with Banner—but kind of dropped the ball with the whole missing kids plot, which was the most interesting thing about it. Season two’s story… just wasn’t for me. It felt kind of filler-y. (Though, if there’s one thing, story wise, that I really liked about season two, it was the way Jaden’s deck had to evolve to combat what he was up against. Oddly enough, that’s something I haven’t seen too often in this franchise.) But if it did have one thing going for it, it was the season that brought in one of my favorite characters.

I love Aster. After the turn Chazz’s character took, Aster was the rival we could take seriously. And I love the way he parallels Jaden. They both have hero-themed decks, and Aster clearly views himself as The Good Guy. So, because he starts out on the side of the villains, it was clear that he was going to get a redemption of some sort, but it happened a lot sooner than I was expecting. Aster starts distancing himself from the people he’s working with almost immediately when he starts to suspect their goals may not be so pure. And that’s something I really respect. He may be a (loveable) snarky little asshole, but he’s not too caught up in his own edginess. And there’s a sweet (if extremely brief) character development moment where he goes from constantly distancing himself from others to being willing to sacrifice himself for the people he now considers to be his friends. That one aspect is very blink-and-you-miss-it, but in general, Aster was one of the few characters who felt fully developed by the show’s end.

But season three was where GX really started to shine. It starts out by introducing us to four More characters, all of whom are interesting in their own ways. Most notably, of course, is Jesse, who quickly becomes Jaden’s new best friend as they bond over their shared ability to see duel monster spirits. (Another plot point that had kind of been building up to this moment.) You might be thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of characters!” (And I didn’t even stop to talk about Bastion, Hassleberry, Atticus, or Zane.) There was a moment where I just had to stop the episode—paused on a scene where Jaden’s friends were all gathered together looking for him—and count how many people were on screen. (And there were, like, nine of them.) And it kind of blew me away. I’m not sure I can name another show with that many characters making up our hero’s team. (Maybe Digimon 02, during the few scenes where the older team was there to help out the new kids.)

And I kid you not, maybe two episodes later, the show suddenly gives us more of a backstory for Jaden. You want to talk about things that really blew me away… I was prepared for Jaden to be this carefree, happy-go-lucky kid from start to finish with that easygoing attitude being his greatest strength. (In a very Davis-like way, speaking of 02.) And then suddenly we’re given this story of how Jaden’s parents never had time for him and a… problem with one his card spirits made it so that he didn’t have any real friends either. And so you just know that all this—going on these crazy adventures with a huge group of friends—has got to be everything he’s ever wanted. Which was a really poignant realization… that then came back and hit me like a truck when it all started falling apart around him.

Season three was really good in general and got really dark. I know it’s hardly unique to Yu-Gi-Oh GX, but I love that storytelling twist where the hero has to accept his flaws or inner darkness as a part of himself, rather than overcome them completely. So that moved me too. Jaden grows more during the second half of season three than in all of the two and a half seasons leading up to it. I mean, I liked all the new characters introduced, Zane and Aster really shined in this season, it’s where Syrus finally comes into his own, I liked the story it told… The whole thing was just a great ride.

Season four… had its ups and downs. It was a chance to come down from all the horror of season three and wrap things up. I think the episodes devoted to getting the kids ready for graduation were really good. Throughout, I wasn’t generally as fond of the episodes that were just about their everyday school lives. (Original Duel Monsters had entire filler arcs, but I could get into those more easily than this style of individual, more inconsequential filler episodes.) But these episodes felt meaningful and focused more on individual characters, many of whom had been neglected for most of the series. The actual evil they faced felt a little… overdone, given that it really just boils down to the kids being afraid to go out into the real world and having to find that courage. I think what disappointed me most, though, was that it really doesn’t explore how Jaden’s changed since the big event at the end of season three and barely touches on his new connection with Yubel. I mean, it’s a change that’s really clear just looking at him, but I would have liked to see a little more self-reflection there. And I feel like the big lesson that final evil teaches them could have easily been worked into the character episodes. I did like the way GX wrapped up, though. Jaden’s new goal for himself also felt like a good representation of GX trying to stand on its own, apart from the original.

I feel like I need to take a step back and just breathe, trying to wrap this up in any coherent way. The thing is, my reaction to season three tends to make it seem, even to myself, like I enjoyed GX more than I actually did. And don’t get me wrong, it did get really good for a while there. And I was really invested in most of their (inadequately explored) characters. But then I have to remember that the first two seasons were really hard to get into most of the time. (We’re talking, like, 100-120 episodes before it was gripping enough for me to want to start binge-watching episodes whenever I had a spare moment.) And most of the things I loved about those characters were… well, inadequately explored. At the end of it all, I am really glad I didn’t just skip right to 5Ds like I was seriously considering. GX was very different from what I’d been expecting, but most of those surprises were pleasant. And I’m walking away from this experience with fond memories.

Well, as the animations has really been out-dated and worst for the picture quality. I have to say, it's hard to fill out enjoyment when old shows like the first series of Mobile Suit Gundam looks better than this or any older shows. The company that did this did it in lack of cash and grab. The English Dubbed characters themes are all over the place and doesn't align with the series themes. Each voice actor has a distinctive tone of voice that aches my head as of hearing them speak per line. Again, the sound-track is always so loud and it's not fitting for ... each scene. I do like the GX's opening. They could've done an ending as well for the series with Pharaoh and him walking together or something. But, it's a good classic nostalgia for people who've been watching 4Kids for years.

I've been a big fan of anime for years, and even tried to get into the original Yu-gi-oh. This is the best one in a long time. A lot of adapts just change the words and don't' make sense. this is pretty cool though. The characters are like real people (some like my friends!) and are pretty funny. I was watching one and I forgot it was a cartoon b/c it was so cool. Cartoon network needs to air it more. Anyone hear about new episodes? For my all time favorite anime adapts, this is nubmer two, right below dragon ball z. my favorite eps ... are the one with the Sacred beast cards and the match between jaden and zane. They had attacks with like 20000 points! not even yugi could pull that off!

So since I already reviewed the manga counterpart and have been rewatching this for the past couple of months, I might as well put down my thoughts on it.

With the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime ending, but the card game and hype still going strong, it was no surprise, that the franchise would go into it's next round. This resulted in a series, that further expands on the crazy world of competitive card games by creating Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, where an entire academy, where kids learn how to play the game and educate themselves to be pros, got build. If you are reading this and think it sounds stupid, ... you might as well turn around, cause YGO! is past the point of making normies understand, why their concept is great.

The series follows Jaden Yuki a happy-go-lucky duelist, who just wants to have fun, never gives up and is damn good at card games. He gets accepted at Duel Academy, but has to stick around the drop-out Slifer Red dormies, cause he mopped the floor with a teacher on his entry exam and since early 21st century media always had a problem with authority figures, the teacher is a dick about it and sticks him with the dropouts regardless of his appearent skill. The rest is alll about his life at the academy; studying, dueling, hanging out with his friends and dealing with evil forces, that want to conquer the world and could easily do so by force, but will fairly agree to settle things by playing a card game instead.

With the introduction out of the way, let's get into the analysis whether the show is good or bad.

Plot (-):

The plot divides into four seasons, which all amount to a total of 180 episodes.

The first season is divided into two arcs. The first one starts episodically, but slowly starts snowballing into more significant arcs like Jaden and his best friend Syrus about to get thrown out of the academy, but having a chance to prevent it through a card game (have I mentioned everything gets settled by a card game yet?) or the inter-academical duel between their best 2 duelists. For lack of ambitiousness the first half probably works best in the entire series. The cast is colourful, the cards are interesting enough to keep fans of the TCG invested and aside from the general premise, it's not too ridiculous.

The second half of season 1 on the other hand... as much as I enjoyed it as a kid, it's writing isn't particularly good or creative. A group of deulists called the Shadow Riders want to snatch a legendary card trio (The Sacred Beasts - a knock off of the Egyptian God cards from the original YGO!, but with the difference, that back in those days the Sacred Beasts actually had playable copies out for IRL), that are hidden at the academy. Sounds fine, problem however is, the group doesn't make much sense; one member is a brainwashed former star student of the academy, whose brainwashing mask only gets explored in the final season, then there's a real life vampire and a real life amazon, a pharaoh from the past, a group of duel spirits (basically playing cards, that have a soul - there's quite a bit of this in this series actually), an alchemist and a minor villain from the first half, who just got picked into the line-up randomly. The whole organization doesn't make much sense and is just a way for them to display their (to be fair) cool cards. Their boss is an old fart, who wanted to attain eternal youth through possessing and using the Sacred Beasts, he's (SPOILER) the former principal of the academy and they make it seem like he's been around for decades, but then characters from the original series start popping up barely aged, making you question the entire timeline's logic.

Season 2 starts out fair enough with the main characters winnig streak slowly growing boring by using the same cards over and over again, so they come up with a magic plot device (SPOILER - the villain makes him unable to see his cards) for him to change his deck up with cards he supposedly invented as a kid, that actually got made and were send to space were they became duel spirits. There is Aster Phoenix, a pro duelist, who is butthurt over the main character using the same cards as him (how this info passed the asses of students, who want to be pro as well, is beyond me), except Jaden's beloved Elemental Heroes aren't even his main deck as it turns out (big surprise!). The main villain of the season creates a card game playing cult and fearing the heel-turn of star student Zane Truesdale, whom even Jaden failed to defeat in season 1, the principal starts some kind of world championship on the academy, that's initially really hyped up, but ends up being ignored by the main characters, leads to the villain acquiring a death ray and Zane's heel-turn having no real malicious intent other than it being an attempt by the writers to reinvent a fan favourite character by making him edgy. The entire tournament finishes (aside from the final duel, that nobody probably cares about) off-screen and is completely overshadowed by Jaden facing the cult-leader Sartorius.

In season 3 they introduce a whole batch of new characters, who are exchange students from other academies. They have interesting playing styles, but are mostly there to replace other secondary protagonists, who the writers had no idea, what to do with in that season. The season is basically divided into 3 part: First an exchange professor introduces a new educational method - the bio-bands, which measure students dueling spirits and gets them promoted or demoted based on the results. The duel academy personel is of course a-ok with this (yeah, I really have questions about the quality of the school curriculum). Turns out (SPOILER) the professor is just sucking out kids energy, so an evil duel spirit can bring his adopted son back, all this results in the duel spirit gaining power and transferring duel academy to the duel spirit world, where monsters will fight you by playing cards and the students who got their life sucked out by the bio-bands turn into zombies. The season culminates in the main character turning into an evil armor-wearing overlord, who starts decimating his friends. After the least conspicious exchange student plays a draw with him, which defeats his evil side, but leaves his real him unaffected, he gets conflicted, but still ends up facing the evil duel spirit.

Season 4 was japanese only and if you couldn't tell by now, I've been watching the dub. In this season the main character changes drastically, meanwhile the implied evil from season 1 (the mask, that corrupted the star student) returns to make his life a hell one last time. The season has some interesting parts, that finish the arcs of several secondary protagonists, who were benchwarming in the last season. Too bad the tacked on writing, doesn't quite make it as satisfying as it could be. Rather than implementing those minor character arcs in the plot of the main arc as a whole and returning to them every now and then, they just chose to slap 2 episode clusters together and let it all play out fairly quickly. It's fine, I guess.

So yes, the writing is oftentimes nonsensical and it really feels like they were just making things up as they went along. There is also alot of filler, which I could frankly enjoy about as much as the other stuff, as long as the duelists were using actually existing cards in the episodes. On the other hand you had the cursed doll using a cursed doll deck or the tennis player playing a tennis themed deck, that nobody would have even wanted to be real and which episodes, I honestly skipped on this re-watch.

It may sound like I hate the series, but in all honesty I had my fun. Unfortunately, that won't make me give the series a star in the category of plot.

Characters (☆):

I recently watched an Arc-V fake sub video, in which an antagonist, who travelled to duel academy, is mocking other characters using YGO! GX cards by destroying their monsters and criticizing the series' flaws. It was funny, but I found the statement, Jaden was the only character, who got character development, to be false.

Speaking of Jaden; a lot of people have praised Jaden's development from season 3 to 4. I thought it was ok, but not great. It's mainly because it's undermined by previous Jaden episodes, that did something similair. It just didn't feel fresh, but the end result is nevertheless remarkable. Personally I prefered the manga Jaden much more, with a backstory that didn't feel made up on the spot 100+ episodes in, him being talented, but not some destined to be legendary duelist after all, plus using the superior manga Elemental Heroes + Masked Heroes and minus the supreme king part (Evil Heroes were kind of cool though).

As for other characters; in my manga review I already mentioned, how I didn't like manga Chazz, who got turned into a Gary Stu. Here he is kid of great, but at times also annoying. Still my favourite though. He's constantly caught up between being the academys's best duelist and being a punching bag and while it does feel like they go a bit on repeats with him, I still like him most. Then there's the aformentioned Syrus, who's a dropout at first, but grows to be the academy's top 3 duelist. There's also Alexis - the girl in the cast - Rhodes and Bastion - the Genius - Misawa, who the writers quickly realised, had no idea what to do with past the first season, so Alexis is another one-off villain in season 2 and Bastion basically becomes a joke at some point. Zane isn't that good either. He keeps combo breaking ATK points like he has star power in Guitar Hero, but is just the designated genius in season 1 and 3edgy5me in season 2. He does get more interesting in season 3 to be fair, when his Cyberdark deck (which is honestly much weaker than his season 1 deck) starts giving him heart attacks. Then there's the season 2 and 3 secondary protagonists, who are also not particularly great characters, but fun to watch dueling.

Most of the villains are kind of flat. I have never been a fan of one-off main villains like Kagemaru and (arguably) Nightshroud/Darkness, who the writers didn't even bother giving a full set of cards. I mean Yami Marik from original YGO! wasn't that brilliant as a character either, but atleast I can associate a bunch of torture cards with him. I guess Yubel was best, having some beef with Jaden from the past.


Art (☆):

It's fine. It looks like Yu-Gi-Oh!, but it's visually not amazing and has ages poorly, when compared to the newer seasons.

Soundtrack (☆):

I'm giving another star here for sounding right. Nothing is particularly amazing to the point, where I would actively seek out the OST on Youtube, but nothing really grates on me. Since I was watching the dub for as long as possible, I also only know 2 theme songs; the "Get Your Game On" bubblegum punk one, from the dub and the season 4 Precious Time, Glory Days one.

Final Score:

The series is nothing amazing and if we are fair mostly a commercial for the card game. If you have fun with the card game you will likely also enjoy this series, but if you don't you might either be at a complete loss with what you are watching or you will create a web-series mocking the ridiculousness of the series for others to enjoy.

5/10

Rating system:

As seen above, I use a star system (symbols I have stolen from Yu-Gi-Oh!'s entries here on MAL) to rate the series/movies in terms of the significant categories, which can indicate its quality. Those ratings do affect the final score I give the series/movie, but I do not use a strict mathematical method to assign the final score. Ultimately I weigh the final ratings by considering the stars given. I do not consider the categories to be equivalent and value a good story and characters over good art or a cathcy soundtrack. As far as the stars given go, I use a four stage scale:
(-) - bad, a series/movie is terrible in this category
(☆) - okay, it's fine, tolerable, but likely nothing special
(☆☆) - good, it's good, but may have flaws or isn't quite among the best I've seen in the category
(☆☆☆) - great, the best rating I can give, when it's truely remarkable in the category

There's a lot that can be said about Yu-Gi-Oh. Mostly in that it's about solving end of the world scenarios through the power of card games. Now, as a real person experiencing this narrative, one might come to the conclusion that this is ridiculous. And you'd be right. However, part of the appeal of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime franchise is how they take this premise and run a marathon with it. In universe, Duel Monsters is extremely serious business, and the game is treated with the gravitas necessary due to their world being run by the game. And due to the Duel Monsters game being as ... relevant to the universe as politics, it is no surprise that they would have a school dedicated to learning the intricacies of the game. GX starts with the protagonist, Judai Yuki, taking the exam required to gain entrance into a prestigious school where this is their very focus, and examines the different events that transpire through his matriculation.

This is an absurd premise.

But GX revels in the absurdity. They are taught theories of dueling, the nature of each type of card and how they interact with each other to the point that people are writing formulas about how to duel and receive PhD's in dueling. It's wonderfully ridiculous and knows this for a fact. The first arc of the show, one can tell the writers and actors had fun with it, even in the dub, despite it being done by 4Kids. Definitely worth a watch, even though it kind of loses itself halfway through. But regardless, very enjoyable.

In order to enjoy this, you really have to understand what it is that you are getting into and *how* to enjoy this anime.
The biggest mistake that most people make with GX is that they go in expecting something along the same lines as Duel Monsters, something that takes itself (somewhat) seriously.
GX could be anything but Duel Monsters in a lot of ways. It's more than a soft reboot of the franchise, it really turns a lot of concepts on its head. For the longest while, before I understood what made GX special, I too was part of this camp of people who detested GX ... due to the fact that it was so dramatically different in tone and style.
Yu-Gi-Oh GX is like a rollercoaster of its own canon. There are frequent, miniature plot arcs that throw all of canon into question if you think too hard on it. The desires and motivations of certain characters feel ridiculous. The world itself feels absolutely ridiculous. But this, in and of itself, is the appeal of Yu-Gi-Oh GX. One quickly finds themselves attached to these zany characters, drawn into Jaden's weird and wonderful world. You, the viewer, become just as excited as Jaden to 'get your game on' and see just how the show will handle the next major plot event.
When I was watching this, I don't think I could have ever predicted how much it would make me laugh. You have to have a real sense of humor. If you go in expecting it to be funny I think you will really have a lot of fun with it. Of course, there are parts where it all gets serious but for the most part Yu-Gi-Oh GX is best experienced with a friend (who has the same sense of humor as you and who can throw up their hands in disbelief as insane events happen) and in the 4Kids English dub. You will have to switch back to the Japanese sub after a certain point, as 4Kids does not complete the series but by that point the show is concluding so it's not a huge loss or inconvenience, you will already be invested. The difference between the sub of GX and the dub of GX is often enough of a difference that it can feel like two completely different anime.
If you aren't sure if GX is to your tastes, go on YouTube and look up some clips from the 4Kids English dub like the CLASSIC "Shmaden Shmuki" or "Crystal Arnold Mammoth". There's so much more I could mention but if those clips leave you craving more, Yu-Gi-Oh GX is your cup of tea and will satisfy you in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

Ok so I watched this back when I was in middle school (sometime 2011-2012) so my memory is going to be somewhat hazy, but from what I remember without re-watching it was a pretty good sequel to the original series that fans of the series could vibe with.

Story (6-10) & Characters (8/10):
Starting things off with the premise; Duel academy itself feels right at home in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the card game has been blowing up worldwide over the past decade since the events of ... the OG series & having duel academies turn up across the globe to accommodate this raving interest is a natural direction to take. In this Duel Academy we follow a defined cast of characters with plenty of personality to go around from: the MC Jaden Yuki, "The Chazz", Zane & Syrus Truesdale, Tyrano Hassleberry, Dr.Crowler (who is voiced by Freiza's VA in the Sub & Goku's VA in the Dub which is pretty funny), and many others populating the academy adding to the vibe that this is a fully realized & lived-in area. You have a lot going for this series on paper with interesting concepts & likable characters that you'd think the writers would be able to just have a field day with, but at the end of the day this is a supplemental series to push children's card game sales and they rarely do more than the bare minimum. The show follows an episodic formula that drags at a snails pace to advertise as many cards as possible through goon of the week duels (gotta get that scalper money); while this does allow breathing room for the academy & characters to get fleshed out, it doesn't take long before the slice of "duel academy" life feels like an autopilot pushing through new card showcases. This trend continues for each story arc as they keep teasing the audience with stale crumbs of the overarching plot, until the writers realize they needed to push things along before interest dies & end up rushing down the climax at the very end. Some of my favorite moments & duels of the series would be: "The Chazz" North Academy training & rematch with Jaden, Every Jaden vs. Zane duel in season 1, Crowler buggin out at Jaden & the "Slifer Slackers" is always funny to see, and that's just to name a few.

Art (9-10) & Sound (7-10):
Kazuki Takahashi's artstyle is right up there as a great one with the likes of Akira Toriyama (Dragonball) & Tetsuo Hara (Hokuto No Ken); instantly recognizable and his characters & duel monsters just ooze so much charm & personality without being overly out of place within their world. Some of my favorite duel monster archetypes that came out of the GX era are: Elemental Heroes (both OG heros & the Neos crew), Cybers, & Dinos (I know Rex Raptor rocked em in the OG show but GX brings it to another level, glad they still get love at locals even today). When it comes to the actual show the artwork does remain consistently "good" but this is 180 episodes and they do need to pick & choose where to prioritize that budget, not everything is gonna be sakuga heaven. By comparison to a lot of other early 2000's anime this isn't anything that particularly stands out as a weak link; a lot of anime from this time period haven't aged well as many studios were still transitioning from cell animation to digital animation on computers & really wouldn't hit their stride till years later. Moving onto the voices & music, my experience is going to be heavily biased towards the dub as that's what I mainly watched but I'll touch on both. When I mentioned that the show's characters just ooze personality & charm; I'm mainly referring to the English VA's and the Dub's script; they take a lot of liberties with the dialouge when compared to the Sub & you can just tell the VA's were having a blast recording this show in the English studios. The Sub is by no means bad & many will say they prefer it which is totally understandable, but I think the Dub does a lot more to liven up the Slice of Life aspect of the Duel Academy that does make it a lot easier to get through the episodes on rewatch. On that note I do also heavily prefer the soundtrack of the English Dub over Japanese and that includes the intros; say what you will about 4Kids but if their intros consistently slap if nothing else ("Chilling out with the crew in the schoolyard" & "Hyperdrive" from 5D's are "Cha la head cha la" levels of iconic). The Japanese soundtrack by comparison is your typical JP pop intro for a daytime anime for kids and they OST tracks & placement feels very tacky.

Overall (7-10) & enjoyment (8-10 because the Dub is goes in):
Bringing it all full circle this is a fantastic sequel to the original series conceptually, and if you're a fan of the OG then you'll likely have a blast with this one flaws & all. It's a shame that we never got the 4th season Dubbed over here in the states, would've loved to see what the team came up with from what they had with the Kingdom Hearts DaRKnEsS vibe going on & emo Jaden NOT chilling with the crew in the schoolyard. I personally don't have the patience to sit through 180 episodes like that anymore now that I got adult life responsibilities to consider when managing my time, but I always rewatch some funny clips & duel highlights on YouTube from time to time. The card game was also only just hitting it's stride with all these new cards and things were only getting better with 5D's & Synchro monsters; I'll always have a soft spot for the Saturday morning cartoon memories & dueling at school during recess, where does the time go...

I grow up watching yugioh dm and yugioh gx , and I am a big yugioh fan , but when trying to watch the og dm yugioh anime , it was painful , I wanted to see fun duels and not a terrible story , which is what yugioh gx delivers me , it is a fun entertaining show , when it come to the duels , each character has their own theme when it comes to decks , and the best part about the series is the "filler" characters , such as belowski and bonapart , their deck as very fun , i wish ... there was more deck like those in real life , I might be bias because i was addicted to the yugioh gx tag force series which made me feel like i lived in the duel academy , but i enjoyed the duels very much , but the reason this show is not a masterpiece for me is because , in S3 they started to focuse more on the "story" if you can even call it that , i didn't care for any of it , i just wanted fun duels , while other season did attempt to make a story , it was minor , and there were more duels and fillers duels that there were "plot" episodes , and even the plot episode were focused more on having fun than telling a boring uninteresting story , but s3 just ruined all of it , there were even episode where there is no duels which my gripe with the yugioh dm , another mino complaint i have with the show , is the lack of care in the details , the world makes no sense , why are there dormitories to begin with , why is there no female slifer or ra dormitories , why don't people pay attention to the trap cards , why do character act like they are gonna loose when they know they won't , because they have a trap card set down , and worst of all , why did they have to put that silly joke of bastion being forgotten.
I might seem like i have more bad things to say than good things , but thats because i suck at explaining why i like thing but im great at hating i guess lol.

Yugioh GX is the sequel to the Yugioh Duel Monsters anime(just the anime not the manga)so it takes place a few years after the original in the same universe with a few cameos and old characters appearing.Also i will be talking about the original version not the crappy 4kids dub.

First lets talk about the story which is honestly a mess.

The first 2 seasons which are the 104/105 episodes are horrible,there is very little plot going on and when you think the plot is starting the advance you sidetracked by pointless 1shot character episodes.

The 3rd and 4h season while they have a better idea of what ... they are doing they are still full of retcons and the messy storytelling despite the better foundation on top of the mood whipsplah.

Yugioh GX actively sabotages its serious/plot developments by the writers not having any idea what they are doing.Its also very MC based so if you don't like Judai you lose most of your enjoyment.

Animation?What animation?The series is almost a slide show,don't expect good animated episodes,expect good animated scenes in some episodes.

Art?You would think with so much non animated the art would be good right?For Yugiohs series barely passes with only a few good character designs.

The music is one of the good points of GX,it has good openings and endings(althought the 2nd opening and ending song stay for too many episodes)and it has some good standout soundtracks(i suggest Camula's theme,Sad duel,Impossible Victory).It also has good VAs for the most part,Kaiser's and Judai's standout as one of the better voice acting roles in the Yugioh series.

And now about the characters.Again its all about Judai,there are few standout characters which serve as a nice topping but the main meal is all about how the events affect Judai.

Judai stays pretty static for the first 2 seasons which means he is pretty bad for the most part.Other characters are either non developed or those that are developed are screwed of their proper character development either due to lack of relevance or retcons.

If you watch this series,remember its all abot the protagonist and a plot that has no idea where its going with its storylines.You may enjoy it as its story is quite the drup trip.

Yugioh GX is bad in ways that defy logic and reason. The bulk of this falls on protagonist Judai Yuki, who is among the worst protagonists in anything ever. He is lazy beyond belief, frequently sleeping through class or skipping it outright despite that he went out of his way to apply to Duel Academy in the first place. He is incredibly entitled, he acts like the world owes him a favor just for existing and treats everyone around him very poorly. He has no ambition or goals whatsoever in life, he has no curiosity in the bizarre things that happen ... around him, and on the whole is just really rude and obnoxious. There are so many episodes that are just Judai dueling some random guy with nothing at stake and in many cases it would make far more sense and be far more fulfilling for his opponent to win, but even though Judai doesn't care about winning or losing, he wins anyway.

The other characters don't fare much better, many of them are poorly developed if they're developed at all; most of the time the characters are just arbitrarily rewritten to behave differently from how they did before and this is passed off as character development.

Worst of all though is Season 3, where after over 100 episodes of everything being played completely unironically straight, the show has a sudden tonal shift and tries to be dark and edgy and subversive about everything that it had been doing up to this point. That is bad writing, really bad writing, you don't get to do that, you've committed yourself to a certain tone and attitude for over 100 episodes, you don't just get to reverse course to be shocking and edgy. And the ending to season 3 is so twisted and depraved that it leaves me with a sickening sensation in my stomach just thinking about it.

Yugioh GX is terrible, don't watch it.

I am re-writing this review to appease the draconian sensibilities of the MAL review moderation team. (I'm kidding, the original review could definitely be fleshed out a bit)

An introduction:
Be a child circa the mid 2000's, in North America. Your favorite toy commercial *ahem* cartoon about a children's card game, has been running strong for several years, and suddenly is supplanted by a vicious pretender to its throne. A spin off, a filthy and vile thing, warping the majesty of the authors artistic integrity........ that's a little dramatic, it is just a commercial for konami's card game after all.
Most of my general dislike of this ... show is YTV's fault, particularly how they started to slot this in to regular Yu Gi Oh's timeslot before Yu Gi Oh was actually finished. But that's not a fair reason to dislike something, so as an adult man I decided to give it another shot.
GX shares most of OG Yu Gi Oh's flaws, constant ass pulls, characters who are flat as boards, abysmal animation. But unfortunately, it lacks the charms of its predecessor, the rival is boring and cannot even approach Kaiba's beautifully asinine levels of dickishness, none of Jaiden's friends are as dopey and fun as Joey, and the villains are forgettable.

Characters:
Jaiden: I refuse to believe that Jaiden (Bite me, long live 4kids supremacy, i will never use his Japanese name) could ever beat Yugi in a duel,Yugi is the king of games. I do like Jaiden's little trademark magnet robot cards though, they're fun. Jaden doesn't really have much in the way of a character though. He struggles to defeat villains, relies on the power of friendship, etc etc. He's Yugi 2.0, but unfortunately without the Pharoah, which definitely robs him of having an interesting hook to his character. Jaiden is just a kid going off to boarding school, and not much else is going on with him.
Chaz: Chaz is just boring Kaiba. He tells Jaiden he'll never be as good as him, wears a cool jacket and has an emo hair cut.
The rest of the characters are all regular shonen arctypes, nothing special or particularly bad, they get the job done, showcasing new cards for my then adolescent mind to hyperfixate on.

Story:
I like the school. I think it's insane that there's an elite boarding school that Kaiba started only teaches duel monsters. But also that fits beautifully into Kaiba's insane priorities, and the pecking order of the hogwarts houses is a wonderful bit of characterization for Kaiba. As for the over arcing plots themselves... They're fine. All of the Yu Gi Oh shows struggle with finding ways of tying whatever evil cabal is threatening to destroy the world this week to the titular card game. The shadow dragons? Riders? Are probably the best, and the show never gets as bad as Alexander the Great and capsule monsters from the original show. But it's never particularly compelling.

Animation:
It's real cheap. All the Yu-Gi-Oh shows are. The franchise lends itself well to quick an easy production cycles, since it is just about characters standing still playing a children's card game. Unfortunately, the show suffers from poor direction, making the duels badly paced and a chore to sit through.

Themes:
Engage in capitalism kids.

Conclusion:
GX is fairly unoffensive toy commercial, much like the rest of the franchise. But by being the one that immediately replaced the one where I started, it's where I began to see the cracks. My reaction to GX is simply a reflection of aging. The excitement I felt with the original couldn't be replicated, and due to my experience, began seeing tropes repeat themselves and began to understand the necessity of the shows existence. It served the brand, as did the original, but now that intent was plain to see, and it just felt so hollow to me.