Is ZEXAL worth watching?

Oct 14, 2012 12:12 PM

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Jul 2007

I've watched through the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! series, and I just finished watching 5D's (which I liked). When I saw the character designs and setting for ZEXAL it disappointed me greatly, because they seemed to have toned down the seriousness from 5D's (and the hairstyles are terrible, even for Yu-Gi-Oh! standards).

I'm wondering if anyone who have watched ZEXAL would recommend it because I sort of want to give it a chance, but it looks so bad from my point of view. I like the card game too and would like to see some of the XYZ monsters, but is the plot any good at all? I would be glad to get any sort of feedback what's good/bad about ZEXAL.

Thanks!

Oct 14, 2012 12:49 PM

yamagoop

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Aug 2011

2186

No, don't watch it. 5D's was a hundred times better.

Oct 14, 2012 12:52 PM

Anime_Name

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Sep 2010

4874

Lukko said:
I've watched through the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! series, and I just finished watching 5D's (which I liked). When I saw the character designs and setting for ZEXAL it disappointed me greatly, because they seemed to have toned down the seriousness from 5D's (and the hairstyles are terrible, even for Yu-Gi-Oh! standards).

I'm wondering if anyone who have watched ZEXAL would recommend it because I sort of want to give it a chance, but it looks so bad from my point of view. I like the card game too and would like to see some of the XYZ monsters, but is the plot any good at all? I would be glad to get any sort of feedback what's good/bad about ZEXAL.

Thanks!

Your standards have been limited to talking about hair...
Zexal is still just a card battle anime for kids and is fine for the genre. I recommend talking 25 minutes out of your life to watch the first episode to decide if the tone(lol hair) is something you can watch.

Oct 14, 2012 1:04 PM

Kurano

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Oct 2011

539

itsvero said:
No, don't watch it. 5D's was a hundred times better.

This. You're just better off waiting for the next series.

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Oct 14, 2012 1:24 PM

renders

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Jan 2012

3650

yeah watch it,it's still yugioh altough it's not as good as the first 3 but if you enjoyed the 1st 3 you will enjoy this too

Oct 14, 2012 2:54 PM

Demekuro

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Jul 2007

Anime_Name said:

The hairstyles are just one factor, but yes it bothers me alot that their hair look like plastic or something.

I'll probably watch the first episode, but I was just interested in what people had to say about it, because I've heard bad rumors about the series.

Oct 14, 2012 3:13 PM

Stark700

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Nov 2011

128111

itsvero said:
No, don't watch it. 5D's was a hundred times better.

Pretty much this. I watched the first episode of it when it debuted and it was...ya, not worth the time.

Oct 14, 2012 3:57 PM

Demekuro

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Jul 2007

I watched the first two episodes and it was kind of what I expected: not as good as the previous series. It's still a bit early to judge the series as a whole though.

Oct 15, 2012 3:03 PM

MahadoKusanagi

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Mar 2008

811

Lets just review, shall we?
Duel Monsters (and its prequel named "a shadow game"): Great concept and innovative all the way it terms of music (epicness the original "passionate duelist"), characters, etc...
GX: Somehwat childish at the beginning but on season 2 GX went up and it turns out to be a good sequel...
5D's: Somewhat wierd because of the bikes. But as soon the Dark Signer appeared, 5Ds was epic...
All of the 3 Series had their unique way of showing things and GX didn't rip off DM also 5Ds didn't ri off GX or DM. Yeah, Ryo Marufuji and Jack Atlas f.e. were inspiered by Seto Kaiba but even though they were unique.

Now shall we talk about Zexal?
If you know all the prequels, then you see something: Zexal tries to combine DM, GX and 5Ds together. And THAT'S the problem. Zexal is not only a rip off, but it is a BAD rip off on almost every point possible (story, characters, etc). Zexal has some good moments but all of the good points are overshadowed by the bad points.

Point being: NO. Zexal isn't worth it. Only for Yuu gi oh fans and even then................hard to say....

Oct 17, 2012 12:40 PM

#10

SlashBlack

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Aug 2009

181

I've watched all of the 73 episodes and i can safely say that zexal sucks

poor character design, duels suck (or most of them), and the cards are not that interesting.

the only reason i'm watching it because it has "Yu-Gi-Oh" in the title.

so no, watch something else, i would only recommend it if you REALLY love the card game.

SlashBlackOct 17, 2012 1:06 PM

Oct 18, 2012 10:49 PM

#11

Z-flame

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Nov 2010

3431

Watch it

Oct 22, 2012 2:43 AM

#12

Oddjoke

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Jun 2011

447

Definitely worth watching.

5D's almost killed the franchise with the terrible ratings it got (reruns of GX were beating it for God's sake). I blame the bland characters and plot. Thankfully Zexal managed to actually remembered what Yu-Gi-Oh was about and did a great job at it to boot. Zexal II so far seems great as well. Easy to see why Zexal's nearly doubling the ratings 5D's got. It's such a better crafted series overall with much more likable and developed characters and a better crafted plot that doesn't fall apart after the first 50 episodes like 5D's did. Not sure if I'd say Zexal is as good as GX, but maybe that's just my nostalgia talking. It probably is better than GX, given early GX wasn't as entertaining as Zexal was.

Also Shark and Kaito are the best rivals and friends since Kaiba and Jounouchi in the original series. I'd go so far as to say say Shark surpasses Jounouchi.

OddjokeOct 22, 2012 2:55 AM

Mar 27, 2014 4:38 AM

#13

Onks

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Mar 2014

Oddjoke said:
Definitely worth watching.

5D's almost killed the franchise with the terrible ratings it got (reruns of GX were beating it for God's sake). I blame the bland characters and plot. Thankfully Zexal managed to actually remembered what Yu-Gi-Oh was about and did a great job at it to boot. Zexal II so far seems great as well. Easy to see why Zexal's nearly doubling the ratings 5D's got. It's such a better crafted series overall with much more likable and developed characters and a better crafted plot that doesn't fall apart after the first 50 episodes like 5D's did. Not sure if I'd say Zexal is as good as GX, but maybe that's just my nostalgia talking. It probably is better than GX, given early GX wasn't as entertaining as Zexal was.

Also Shark and Kaito are the best rivals and friends since Kaiba and Jounouchi in the original series. I'd go so far as to say say Shark surpasses Jounouchi.

This is probably the most outrageous thing I've heard in ages. It sounds like the opinion of a 5 year old. 5ds is undoubtably MUCH MUCH better than zexal and always will be. If your saying the plot breaks up you probably haven't even watched it. I made an account just to post this and anyone who has actually watched both 5ds and zexal will agree with me.

Feb 16, 2016 9:29 PM

#14

Kyle_Rumble

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Feb 2016

Dear mr or mrs. Oddjoke.
You say you have watched both zexal and 5d's and after you say that Zexal is better than 5d's. However if someone were to view your anime history of completed animes, then they would see that only Zexal is listed. You sir or madame, never completed 5d's and therefore are entirely wrong and bias. Please do not post on forums where you have evidence to support your opinion.

P.S; I just created this account and I have seen a fair number of anime's including all the yugioh series. I just have one thing to say to say about series 4 (Zexal) and series 5 (Arc.V). They are not worth it. Don't waste your time on them. If you want to watch another yugioh series watch capsule monsters. It was pretty good. Although it isn't technically in the yugioh universe.

There is only one way to watch series 4 (Zexal) and series 5 (Arc.V) watch them out of order. What I mean is that, you should watch Zexal first and then watch Arc.V followed by the original three series. The new order would then be,
Yugioh Zexal - Series 4; Yugioh Arc.V - Series 5; Yugioh: Duel Monsters - Original Series; Yugioh: Generation-X (GX) - Series 2; then Yugioh: 5'ds - Series 5. As your finale.

This new order is the only way I recommend watching the newer series.

Short Summary of Yuigoh *Contains Spoilers* will be in the following post.

Feb 16, 2016 9:59 PM

#15

Kyle_Rumble

Offline

Feb 2016

Yugioh Series Summary *Contains Spoilers*

Yugioh Series 1 (original series "Yugioh: Duel Monsters")

Young Yugi Moto has completed the millennium puzzle, and has awakened a evil force inside the millennium puzzle known as the Pharaoh. Together they form an ner-perfect dueling combination. However, if you've watched the whole series then you already know that he did surrender to his grandpa's colleague's daughter/niece so she could have her vengeance. This is all explained in a flash back during the episode. Young yugi and the pharaoh form a near-perfect dueling combination and never dropped below 100 life points in any of the major duels. This is very similar to the dueling relationship Young "whatever his name is" and Astral. But unlike whatever his name is and Astral they do not receive any special other worldly help, when their life points drop below 50.

Yugioh Original series 2 (yugioh:GX)

In this series young jaden yugi has enrolled in duel academy a famous professional dueling academy for gifted young individuals who rather play with a pack of cards, then look at the beautiful girls with short skirts on. Anyway, getting off topic jaden with the help of his duel monster spirits wins almost every
duel.

Please note that series 1 (the original series) and series 2 (yugioh GX) and series 4 Zexal all have the same sort of dueling teams. All 3 have spirits that train youngsters into fine duelists. All 3 have some sort of shadow-game like duels. In the original series there was yugi/dark yugi and they sometimes were forced into playing shadow games (apparently there is a prequel) . In yugioh Gx there is Jaden/duel monster spirits and they are sometimes forced to compete in a shadow game (especially the finale). Then in series 4 (Yugioh Zexal) there is whatever the hell his name is/Astral (duel spirit form another world/dimension) and they play for number cards, much like shadow-hunters in the kabai city dueling tournament played for your rarest card.

Series 3 (Yugioh 5D's)

In this series there are no duel spirits for just the one protagonist instead there ]exist five rare dragon cards that are all different types. And when the owner of these cards come together they form the signer dragon. Much like how in the original series when the three egyptian gods cards are together/fused they becomes nearly unstoppable combination.

The original series 1 goes further because on a regular basis kabai another main neither protagonist nor antagonist tests his so called "perfect" strategy to beat either yugi/dark yugi or the egyptian god card(s). I actually find it kinda strange that yugi is able to beat yami or dark yugi after just one deck. I guess it has something to do with the fact that kabai considers some of the yugioh cards pathetic and doesn't want to use them to defeat yugi. I do think kabai should have been the one to defeat the Pharaoh or yugi. But they did team up for some of the episodes. And it's not like kabai didn't try his damndest to beat yugi/dark yugi either. So good try Kaiba and yugi you have no life because you want to play some card game then go on a date with tea, even though you're a little young to go out with her.

THAT'S ALL FOLKS

Mar 16, 2016 10:56 AM

#16

DreamButcher

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Jan 2016

Some parts of Zexal are worth watching, however the majority of it is rather bland. If you like 5ds then I'd HIGHLY suggest watching Arc-V, it was written by the same man who created 5ds and it's very good. However, if you want to fully enjoy Arc-V, you should watch every series before as there are elements of every other series in it.

Apr 17, 2016 3:09 AM

#17

OSFrog

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Sep 2014

823

Woah, 4 years thread necromancy. Thankfully as this forum is dead as fuck, nobody will care. Well, just for someone who stumbled upon this thread like I did:

Oddjoke is completely correctly regarding ratings. 5Ds tanked. Hard. As a show to sell children's trading card, it completely and utterly flopped. The first 24 episodes was dark, gritty, atmospheric, and most importantly completely failed to attract the attention of the 8-12 years old they're supposed to advertise to. Unlike Judai before, or Yuma after, Yusei does not appeal to kids. He's the cool brooding kind-of-edgelord adults love, but that kind of character doesn't capture the kid's attention. The dystopian conspiracy plot is received well by the older audience, but those kids doesn't really care. "This show is boring as fuck, and the cards aren't cool, I'm going to watch Pokemon instead". It however, couldn't appeal to the adult audience either, as it airs during the 5:30-6 block on Sunday, not really prime time hour television. This went on for 64 episodes, which is nearly 2 years. After that long, no matter what they did (like turn the show into card-game GaoGaiGAR, complete with Masaki Endoh rocking the last 2 OPs), they can't turn the public's reception around, its simply too late. Not to mention the 40 or so episodes of filler in between Dark Signer and WRGP, about a year's worth of episodes.

Now Zexal. It slowly eased kids in with a goofy character, a school setting with a 13 years old protagonist, No. 39 Kibou'ou Hope/Utopia is summoned first every episodes and continue to receive power ups in every significant plot event, unlike 5Ds which featured a new Synchro Warrior every duel and doesn't have Yusei owning his ace until a good 16-17 episodes into it. Yusei also rarely won with Stardust alone, while Hope got equips after equips, and a bazillion forms. That's good merchandising. Then come the second half and it start easing in the SUFFERING and PLOT, after 73 weeks of goofy-ness interlaced with plot.

TL;DR: 5Ds was a decent show, but failed its merchandising spectacularly, it then sacrificed its narrative integrity to try and boost sales, but both failed, resulting in a trainwreck that it never fully recovered from (partially from real life events affecting the plot). Zexal focused on its merchandising with plot taking a backseat, resulting in a show with much higher rating despite an objectively inferior plot

Personal comment: This is a person that has Zexal as his only anime on his watching list. While that itself can be explained (After initially getting around to filling mine in, I never bothered to update it), the nature of their comment, and their comments in general on this site points to a case of questionable taste. Especially when he hasn't been online since April 2013 (around the time when shit really hits the fan for Zexal II), and gave Zexal I a 10/10.

OSFrogApr 17, 2016 3:18 AM

Jul 16, 2016 5:06 AM

#18

Yuma24

Offline

Jun 2016

I would say ZEXAL is worth watching I've watched the whole series and it's pretty good though some parts are kinda annoying. I've watched the other yugioh series but they weren't as good as ZEXAL.

Dec 21, 2017 3:36 PM

#19

SpeedRoidGenm

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May 2016

2167

MahadoKusanagi said:
Lets just review, shall we?
Duel Monsters (and its prequel named "a shadow game"): Great concept and innovative all the way it terms of music (epicness the original "passionate duelist"), characters, etc...
GX: Somehwat childish at the beginning but on season 2 GX went up and it turns out to be a good sequel...
5D's: Somewhat wierd because of the bikes. But as soon the Dark Signer appeared, 5Ds was epic...
All of the 3 Series had their unique way of showing things and GX didn't rip off DM also 5Ds didn't ri off GX or DM. Yeah, Ryo Marufuji and Jack Atlas f.e. were inspiered by Seto Kaiba but even though they were unique.

Now shall we talk about Zexal?
If you know all the prequels, then you see something: Zexal tries to combine DM, GX and 5Ds together. And THAT'S the problem. Zexal is not only a rip off, but it is a BAD rip off on almost every point possible (story, characters, etc). Zexal has some good moments but all of the good points are overshadowed by the bad points.

Point being: NO. Zexal isn't worth it. Only for Yuu gi oh fans and even then................hard to say....

This show is kinda like the Pokemon of Yu-Gi-Oh, only worse.

Dec 21, 2017 3:45 PM

#20

SpeedRoidGenm

Offline

May 2016

2167

SlashBlack said:
I've watched all of the 73 episodes and i can safely say that zexal sucks

poor character design, duels suck (or most of them), and the cards are not that interesting.

the only reason i'm watching it because it has "Yu-Gi-Oh" in the title.

so no, watch something else, i would only recommend it if you REALLY love the card game.

It's good to critqe a show, even Zexal needs some critics and more reviews with them being more true and not really outta context

Sep 3, 2018 2:51 AM

#21

TheMoonwatcher

Offline

Nov 2017

I personally quite like ZEXAL and it's definitely worth trying to watch. I'll admit I did take a year break from watching it because I felt like it got a little too repetitive at parts but it's got some amazing fight scenes and I love the intensity of it. I might be biased because I first saw some of it as a really young child so it does hold a bit of a nostalgic value to me but its still worth giving a go

Oct 15, 2018 3:46 AM

#22

SpeedRoidGenm

Offline

May 2016

2167

I personally quite hate ZEXAL and it's definitely worth hating

Aug 13, 2019 1:02 PM

#23

SpeedRoidGenm

Offline

May 2016

2167

I personally quite like ZEXAL and it's definitely worth trying to watch.

Aug 13, 2019 1:02 PM

#24

SpeedRoidGenm

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May 2016

2167

I personally quite like ZEXAL and it's definitely worth trying to watch.

Sep 11, 2021 4:35 AM

#25

Phasar2022

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Oct 2020

243

No, don't watch it. 5D's was a hundred times better.

Apr 13, 2022 7:55 AM

#26

ShadowUnown

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Apr 2015

616

I'm just here to make the comment of the year.

Jun 11, 2022 6:42 PM

#27

kyuteillusion21

Offline

Apr 2021

Yes maybe 5ds is better but zexal has some good points too and the story progresses in the middle episodes zexal is worth to watch because it's entertaining and relaxing and yes some episodes are dry and some of the characters are annoying but this progresses in the middle episodes so please watch it

Oct 5, 2022 3:12 AM

#28

AngelusBarney

Offline

Feb 2009

I think if you give it a chance, it might just end up growing on you. I know it did with me.

See All Discussions

Poll: » Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal Episode 69 Discussion tsubasalover - Aug 27, 2012	4	by vv1 »» Apr 8, 5:30 PM
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Is ZEXAL worth watching?

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