If you've ever heard about the monstrous discrepancy between the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh anime and the smoothed anime by 4kids (talking about Dual Monsters), well, it's even worse. 5d's is the moment when a real director tried to make something out of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise by putting it in a futuristic dystopian context.
Far away from the age of the Heart of the Cards, the fancy millennium items and championships for titles, the card game in 5D's has become the social norm for settling anything and everything. It's become a kind of ultra-popular, over-mediated sport. The rich own the rare cards and use them to crush the working class, it's almost Marxist on the edges. Fudo Yusei is one of those oppressed but who manages to get out of his unhappy fate by the sheer force of his talent. We are not talking about just knowing how to play a few cards well and having a lucky draw, this is the first time that we see players actually playing their own deck well rather than each time getting cards out of the script.
In short, Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's is not only Yu-Gi-Oh on motorcycles, it's probably the only one in the franchise to have tried to have a deep message, a sustained rhythm, complex characters, symbolic violence that really comes to life (it's about class struggle, sect, suicide, prison, discrimination) and that dares to put a main character already mature but not without evolution. Just making a good anime simply and not just a tool to sell boosters. So there are some flaws that remain eh, there is still magic and destiny lying around. But I sincerely think that given what the anime has to offer, it's worth seeing even for a non fan of the original series and even more so for those who had left it far away thinking that it must have been something close to stupid.
8/10 Story (Deep & intelligent but have some boring or predictable parts)
6/10 Art (Kinda old now)
10/10 Sound (Amazing OST!)
8/10 Character (Some are really great, notably Aki)
9/10 Enjoyment (Well directed)
8/10 Overall (Very Solid)
Watch Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's, and in subbed for pity's sake.
