To quote Timon and Pumbaa: "Love. Not like, love."
Manga: The original manga is probably my favorite part of the franchise. The storytelling is better, and makes more sense -- the anime continuity got messed up when they switched animation studios. It also looks more at some of the characters and backstory that isn't there in the anime version. Also, manga Duelist Kingdom > anime Duelist Kingdom. By far.
Anime: The original Toei series is... below average, I have to admit. It was really poorly executed, the animation sucked, voice acting was bad (Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Mokuba!), and the manga version of this arc was superior in every way. The second series, Duel Monsters, is, of course, my favorite anime ever. Most of it is true to the greatness of the manga, but of course some of it is shifted around due to the change of animation studios. It means there's some plot holes left, and the characters aren't introduced properly at the beginning, as you're expected to know them from the old series. On the plus side, this series has filler. Great filler. Virtual World was good because it delves more into Seto and Mokuba's backstory, and shows us a bit more of Gozaburo as well. Waking the Dragons is actually my favorite arc in the entire anime -- the Doma guys are all great, even more so considering they're 'just filler', and the duels in this arc are really intense (Pharaoh vs Rafael rematch, anyone?). KC Grand Prix was unnecessary, but fun. And it had Sieg. Who doesn't love Sieg? ...Everyone but me, apparently. D: Unfortunately, Dawn of the Duel was kind of poorly done. They messed around with Bobasa's character too much, revived Thief King Bakura for no reason, and added some pointless fillery episodes. (The least they could've done was add more of Kisara and priest!Seto, but nooooooooo. >_>)
On to GX, and what a massive failure it is after just a few episodes. I think the idea was good, but they did it all wrong. If they'd given more development to the other characters instead of having Judai duel over and over and over every single episode using the same monsters and combos.... you get the picture. I wanted to see more of Misawa and Kaiser and those other awesome characters. Seriously, Misawa gets, what, three or four duels over the whole series? The plot is acceptable, I guess, my main beef with this series is the focus on Judai. And the ending... inconclusive much?
5D's, I wasn't expecting much. When I first heard the concept of D-Wheels and the Riding Duels I almost wanted to cry. Dueling on motorcycles? Noooooooo. Boy was I wrong. This is the greatest thing I've seen in a long time. It's just amazing so far, and I'm liking it more and more every episode. It fixes all the mistakes that GX made. The new dueling rules and more types of monsters make the game so much more exciting, we now have a consistent plot again, and fair amounts of screentime and development for all the characters. The cast is so varied, from psycho killer Aki to clumsy and wacky Carly to calm and cool Yusei. I love them all, and I can't wait to see how things will turn out in the future for this series. <3
TCG: Not so much. I mean, I still buy new cards, but just to collect, not to play. I'm not a very good duelist. T_T Sometimes I'll participate in friendly games though, just for a bit of fun and an excuse to yell out "SHINKURO SHOUKAN~! SUTADASTO DORAGOOOOON~!!" XD
...I wrote waaaay too much.
tl;dr: Yes. I like it. |