OMG! I can't believe what I'm witnessing right now (Note: I spent close to an hour typing this post). I was just about to go to sleep then I saw it trending and my only reaction reading it said was "WHAT?!" with my eye all wide in shock. I was speechless. I don't know what to feel right now because I really can't believe it.
I started with the Duel Monsters anime. It was my favorite anime (at the time). I would pray before I went to sleep that I would wake up in time in order to watch it. I was obsessed with it. No other series came close. Yami Yugi was my favorite character. He was just so cool. But that was just the anime (an adaptation which makes changes). Then... I read the original manga by Takahashi himself. A whole new world was opened. From chapter 1 to chapter 343... what a journey it was. The only way I can explain it is... masterpiece. Takahashi is a genius. To create a new game each chapter is no easy thing to do, but he did it. He loved games and he showed us how creative he was. Those first 59 chapters of the manga are my favorite along with the games during the DDD are my favorite. He created a main character (Yami Yugi) that was diverse in his skillset rather than being good in only one thing, which I find to be boring. That is why Takahashi made him Yugiou (Game King). Like I said before, his manga opened a whole new world. There was no way I could go back and watch the anime and its spinoffs. They just weren't the Yugioh Takahashi intended. 5D's is my 2nd favorite because it is the closest out of all the spinoffs to the original series, but that's it.
It's currently the 25th anniversary of the manga (ends in September) and this is such an unfortunate thing to happen. I was disappointed last year that a new Yugioh anime correctly adapting the manga wasn't announced to celebrate the 25th anniversary. It shouldn't even have come to this, but I hope the folks at Shueisha (or Takahashi's executive friends who approached him to do something for the 20th manga anniversary that resulted in The Dark Side of Dimensions manga canon movie) do in fact decide to honor his greatness by remaking the anime. Forget card games and anime trying to sell a card game. Yugioh is about story. The world needs to experience the true story of Takahashi's manga.
Takahashi, you are my manga GOAT. Toriyama, Oda, Kishimoto, Kubo? No disrespect to them, but your manga was better. Thank you so much creating Yugioh. Thank you for creating Yami Yugi. He's my GOAT. Thank you for creating Seto Kaiba. The greatest rival. Thank you for creating the greatest rivalry in manga. Thank you for creating Transcend Game and The Dark Side of Dimensions. Never did I expect the post-manga landscape of Yugioh to allow a manga sequel and manga canon movie to be made. It was a great 2 part manga, and movie that I spent 6 hours watching on my 1st watch because I had to savor everything I saw since that could be the last time I see Yugi-tachi again in new material. I can't believe it really is the last piece of new material (aside from Spherium II since that is only an idea and not concrete).
We all have a single chip called life. You made yours count. This isn't the story of a great Pharaoh. Everyone has a story of their own... and that story ends in light. Thank you for having the biggest impact on my life Takahashi. I love you.
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If you haven't read Takahashi's manga that started it all, here is the Kazuki Takahashi manga canon (because the 2 adaptations in 1998 and 2000 butchered it):
Yugioh (In English, Viz Media weirdly split the story into Yugioh, Duelist, Millennium World) > Transcend Game > The Dark Side of Dimensions
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