Yu-Gi-Oh! (anime): Difference between revisions

There's a huge amount of video games based on this series, the most famous of which is ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Reshef of Destruction (Video Game)|Yu-Gi-Oh Reshef of Destruction]]''. It spawned a movie called ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh the Movie Pyramid of Light (Anime)|The Pyramid of Light]]''. Yugi and his alter ego return in the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Tenth Anniversary Movie (Anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh Tenth Anniversary Movie]]'' that [[Bat Family Crossover|teams him up with Juudai and Yusei.]]

 

 

This series has [[Yu-Gi-Oh (Franchise)/Tear Jerker|Tear Jerker]], [[Yu-Gi-Oh (Franchise)/Nightmare Fuel|Nightmare Fuel]], [[Yu-Gi-Oh (Franchise)/Awesome Music|Awesome Music]], and [[Yu-Gi-Oh (Franchise)/Characters|Character Sheet]] pages.

 

For the card game based on the manga and anime, see [[Yu-Gi-Oh (Tabletop Game)|Yu-Gi-Oh]].

* [[Abandoned Warehouse]]: Bandit Kieth dueled Yugi in an abandoned warehouse that had its own Duel Monsters arena.

* [[Aborted Arc]]: Beginning in Season 2 of the anime, the stone tablet that would continue to be a plot point for the rest of the series showed Kaiba and Yugi dueling in ancient Egypt. A vision from Isis to Kaiba showed him a vision of the battle. Later in Season 3 another vision of this battle is shown, but it's completely different from the vision showed before. The battle is seen first-hand in Season 5, and is rather underplayed given the amount of foreshadowing and importance given to it before. Furthermore, though they differed greatly both visions showed Kaiba was quite clearly the Pharaoh's enemy, but in Season 5 he's completely loyal and the only reason the battle occurs is because he gets possessed.

* [[Amulet of Concentrated Awesome]]: Yugi's Millennium Puzzle given that it has the soul of a 3,000 year old Pharaoh in it and tends to be generally badass when it takes over Yugi's body. Actually, most of the Millennium Items in general fit this trope.

* [[Ancient Egypt]]: A large chunk of the characters and [[MacGuffin|artifacts]] come from this time period. It was also the scene of the final Shadow Game.

** Also: when Yugi, during the tabletop roleplaying game with Bakura, uses his ability to turn enemy creatures to the "good" side, they suddenly become extremely cute.

* [[Angry Eyebrows]]: Yugi --> Yami.

{{quote| '''Random Mook (to Yugi)''': Wow. Your hair's crazy enough for two people!<br />

'''Head Mook''': Attention, Duelists! My hair is now an internet phenomenon!" }}

** Technically, with 4 items to 3, there are more benign or beneficial cases - the necklace, the key, the scales and the puzzle against the eye, the ring and the rod.

* [[Art Shift]]: In the first episode. Once Yami defeats Kaiba and performs a mind crush on him, his face becomes less angular and his eyes gain pupils.

* [[Ax Crazy]]:

** Yami Marik and Yami Bakura.

* [[Badass Adorable]]: Yugi, anyone?

* [[Badass Normal]]: Yugi -- the normal one, not the Pharaoh one -- manages to [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|take out all three God Cards in one turn against Atem]].

*** You want [[Berserk Button]]? Try [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYx_sJRmgeY what Yami did to Insector Haga]. Never ''ever'' threaten Yugi in his Other Self's presence. Just... don't.

* [[Between My Legs]]: This shot is how Rebecca is introduced in her first appearance.

** Yugi later on in the series has also shown that he has the ability to kick ass even ''without'' his Other Personality, at times.

*** Also, the Seal of Orichalcos.

* [[Big Bad]]: Kaiba, Pegasus, The Big Five, Noah/Gozaburo, Marik, Dartz, and Zorc/Bakura. Subject to the [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]].

* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: Seems to happen a lot. Notable because oftentimes the mere presence of the friends of whoever is dueling gives them the strength to win, or at least continue playing into the next episode.

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Played straight with the Egyptian text. Atem's name is written as "Atemu" and the carvings on Rishid's face and Malik's back are genuine hieroglyphs. The author [[Did Do the Research|knew what he was doing]].

** Subverted in the anime, where the Enochian text on the Orichalcos cards is a random jumble of nonsense. However, the card title spells "Orichalcon" and the rim of the seal spells "Oreichalcos" twice.

** Also in the Waking the Dragons arc.

* [[Black Magician Girl]]: [[Trope Namer]] due to the "Dark Magician Girl" card, which is actually named "Black Magician Girl" in the original anime.

* [[Blind Idiot Translation]]: The card known in Japanese as "Shisha Sosei" (literally "Raise Dead") was called "Reborn the Monster" early in the English dub, before changing to "Monster Reborn", which makes a lot more sense.

* [[Body Surf]]: Marik causes much grief to the protagonists by doing this during the Battle City arc.

** Yami Yugi seemed to use "OBLITERATE" often, for both Exodia and Blue-Eyes.

** Though, characters will tell the one calling the attacks to shut it. Episode 120 was a good one, even if Kaiba (who told Gozaburo to be quiet) told us what the card did anyway. The "I know what the card does, you fool" was just marvelous.

* [[Card Games]]: DURP.

* [[CCG Importance Dissonance]]: Countless examples, the most famous of which being the Dark Magician and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

* [[Dead Ex Machina]]: Yugi gets help from all his [[Taken for Granite|petrified]] friends ([[My Friends and Zoidberg|and Kaiba]]) in his head before playing his last turn in the duel against Noah.

* [[Dead Little Sister]]: Pegasus got his [[Start of Darkness]] after his beloved Cyndia passed away.

*** Considering a big part of his back story was that he felt alone due to his lack of friends, his little sister dying is only going to make that worse. Also, not many people write to their deceased relatives, so some would argue that it's messed him up a little bit.

* [[Dead Man Writing]]: Slightly subverted with Pegasus in the Doma filler saga. {{spoiler|He wasn't dead, merely comatose due to his soul being removed.}} However, one could bring up the manga here...

** To an extent, Mokuba Kaiba and Marik Ishtar also.

** And [[Averted Trope|averted hard]] with Seto Kaiba.

* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: Mai Kujaku/Valentine for the first few arcs, and then heads back to Arctic levels during most of Season 4 due to her [[Face Heel Turn]].

** Kaiba may count as a male example, at least in the Japanese version. He becomes more amiable and less openly insulting towards the others.

*** There was actually a moment in Season 1 in which he was considering the truth behind the Heart of the Cards, but he reverted after he was saved by Yugi in the end.

** Inverted in the first anime adaptation, where Ryou is given more screentime even in episodes that correspond to the manga chapters before he was introduced.

* [[Designated Victim]]/[[Distress Ball]]: Mai Kujaku/Valentine, subjected to several on-screen losses for the sake of plot advancement, and between the Battle City Finals and Doma, for real.

** Hiroto Honda/Tristan Taylor falls here too.

* [[Dub Induced Plot Hole]]: In Season 2 Isis/Ishizu arrives in Domino City via plane. A Domino museum official welcomes her "to America." This is contradicted in Season 4 when the protagonists actually travel overseas to America to investigate the local [[Filler Villain|Filler Villains]].

* [[Dub Name Change]]: The dub was done by [[Four Kids Entertainment]], after all. Some card names were also changed, for example, Black Magician being renamed to Dark Magician (and the same for the card's female counterpart, Black Magician Girl to Dark Magician Girl) and its corresponding attack card, Black Magic, being renamed to Dark Magic Attack.

** [[Lampshaded]] in Duel Academy's school pledge.

* [[Dysfunction Junction]]: Several characters experienced a tragic and/or depressing event in their life, especially the villains.

* [[Evil Is Not a Toy]]: Nor is it a card game, ''Pegasus''.

* [[Evil Sounds Deep]]: Played straight with Yugi/Yami Yugi and Marik/Yami Marik. Both played straight and subverted by Bakura/Yami Bakura in the original Japanese. Yami Bakura does have a deeper voice than Bakura, but both have a [[Larynx Dissonance|high-pitched squeaky effeminate voice]].

** Also inverted with Noah; when he's a villain, his voice is high-pitched and bratty, but when he makes his [[Heel Face Turn]], it gets lower and more mature.

** Played straight with Yugi in the first series anime produced by Toei.

{{quote| Kaiba: Alright, that little detour was a complete waste of my time and effort. So let's move on and pretend that nonsense never happened. It's time for us to continue the Battle City Finals! Set us back on course, to Kaiba Corp Island.}}

* [[Filler Villain]]: Dartz, Noah, Gozaburo, and Zigfried von Schroder.

** [[The Hero]] - Yami Yugi/Yugi

** [[The Lancer]] - Jounouchi (Joey)

** A really touching one in particular it's between Yami and Yuugi; after Yuugi is discharged from the hospital after his duel with Bandit Keith, he becomes uncharacteristically quiet and gloomy. Even though he knows something is troubling him, Yami decides to patiently wait for Yuugi to voice his concerns, and only then he realizes that Yuugi had been afraid of losing him after his duel with Keith, and now feared that Yami would leave him someday. So Yami, knowing full well that one day he would have leave his side, tells him that despite what he ''had'' to do, he ''wanted'' to be with him forever. And Yuugi, realizing as well that Yami would have to go, replies that he also wished for them to be together; even if the Pharaoh didn't get his memory back, he and Yuugi would make new memories together.

* [[Fun Size]]: Yugi Mutoh and Yami.

* [[Geo Effects]]: Field Power Bonus. Emphasized very much earlier in the card game, but dies out to only Field Spell Cards by the Duelist Kingdom finals.

* [[Genki Girl]]: Mana, whose introduction consisted of jumping out of a vase to glomp the pharaoh.

* [[Girls Love Stuffed Animals]]: Rebecca had a teddy bear that she regularly spoke to in her first appearance. By the time she reappears in the Doma arc however, she's ditched the [[Tastes Like Diabetes|"cutesy little girl"]] angle, and Teddy is nowhere to be seen.

* [[Gotta Catch Em All]]: Averted -- even though the show is largely about a collectible card game, the actual ''collection'' aspect is barely seen, with most characters pulling new cards out of nowhere during duels rather than explicitly obtaining them through booster packs or trades.

* [[I Have Your Wife]]: Used by various villains throughout the series. The target is usually Mokuba, who is kidnapped a grand total of 15 times.

* [[I Just Want to Have Friends]]: When Yugi first completes the puzzle, he makes a wish on it to have some true friends.

* [[Ill Girl]]: Shizuka/Serenity.

* [[In the End You Are On Your Own]]

* [[Killer Yoyo]]: Hirutani's gang in one story in the manga and one story in the Toei anime

* [[Knight Templar Parent]]: This is about the nicest description possible for the way Gozaburo Kaiba raised his children. Although it was probably really just the company he was worried about.

* [[Lethal Joke Item]]: Some cards are weak or nearly-useless on their own but devastating in the right circumstance. For example, the Ojamas, three monsters with 0 Attack, but have a support card that can wipe out all opposing monsters, spells, and traps, and can fuse into a potent defensive wall. Or the four [[Parodius]] monsters, each with minimal ATK and DEF, but which can combine with one another as Union Cards to have absurd ATK and DEF.

** Baby Dragon was the earliest example. It starts with only 1200 ATK, easily destroyed, but with Time Wizard, it becomes Thousand Dragon, with 2400 ATK, stronger than most cards in the game.

* [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen]]: They settle every conceivable difference via a ''collectible card game'', for cryin' out loud!

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: The second-series anime.

* [[The Load]]: Mokuba. Serenity. Also Tea and Tristan, who were pretty much just around to provide moral support ([[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded multiple times]]).

* [[Lovely Assistant]]: [[Stage Magician]] Arkana was in love with his Lovely Assistant, Catherine, and they were engaged--before his disfiguring accident. Although Catherine still loved him, Arkana pushed her away. He later regretted his choice and fell in with Marik when he promised he could restore Catherine to him.

* [[Love Makes You Evil]]: Pegasus' motive. Also Akunadin to some extent.

* [[Love Martyr]]: Odion.

* [[Lull Destruction]]

* [[The Magic Poker Equation]]: Arguably Yu-Gi-Oh's central trope, where "important" players have an uncanny ability to draw the ''only'' card that will help them. Some adaptations present that drawing is a matter of skill, determination and faith, and the duelists are aware of this fact.

** If you find someone with a green circle on their forehead, they probably want your soul so they can feed it to their ancient beast.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: Happens for a couple of characters, particularly the (ancient) Egyptian ones:

** Also Odion's name in the Japanese version is [http://www.behindthename.com/name/rashid Rashid] (or "راشد"), meaning "rightly guided" in Arabic. Odion/Rashid is Marik/Malik's older adopted brother and serves as one of his two [[Morality Pet|Morality Pets]] in the series.

** Shadi's name is only a phoneme different from the ancient Egyptian word ''[http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/shabti.html shabti]''. ''Shabti'' are figurines placed in tombs among funerary goods so they can be servants to the tomb's owner in the afterlife. Using representative figurines replaced killing [[Powered By a Forsaken Child|actual]] [[Human Sacrifice|servants]] for this sole purpose. Shadi guards the Millennium Items' original resting place and {{spoiler|[[Dead All Along|turns out to be just a ghost]] since Yami Bakura had killed him 5,000 years ago when he was one of Atem's priests.}} And like Malik's and Rashid's names, the name "Shadi" is also [http://www.behindthename.com/name/shadi-1 Arabic] in origin, [[Shown Their Work|reflecting]] that all these characters come from modern Egypt where Arabic is the official language.

* [[Morality Pet]]: Mokuba Kaiba.

* [[More Than Mind Control]]: Dartz in Season 4.

* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Mai Valentine and Dark Magician Girl.

* [[Multicolored Hair]]: Yugi, and his grandfather.

*** Maybe. Maybe not. Anyone who reads Nietzche and truly understands his philosophy would know how to be the [[Ubermensch]], a character that some would think is a villian, but can be a hero (think Batman).

* [[No Kill Like Overkill]]: Numerous times, characters will pointlessly weaken themselves in order to boost their monsters powers or completely clear the field before delivering a final blow so that not only do their opponents life points drop to 0, but all their monsters are gone too. This being in situation where they could save themselves the trouble and just attack outright and win.

* [[Noble Demon]]: Seto Kaiba.

* [[Non Human Undead]]: In the first tournament, Yugi defeats Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon by fusing his Mammoth Graveyard into it... which, because both are incompatible types, slowly weakens the resulting fusion and will cause it's eventual death. After this, the rule is never referenced again.

** Joey and Mai later learn Marik also plays a lot of traps, which are even more brutal and painful than anything Odion used.

** Besides the specific duelists, quite often the characters [[Genre Savvy|know the opponent has a dangerous trap waiting]], but they acknowledge if they want to win they either need to find a way around it, or trigger it and hope they can come back from whatever it does.

* [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome]]: Yugi vs. Jonouchi immediately after Battle City, even if we know Joey won (he was battling Yugi for his Red-Eyes and is shown to have gotten it back). Both mediums skip this.

* [[Oh Crap]]: Being on the receiving end of a spell, trap, or ability that they [[Didn't See That Coming|didn't see coming]].

** Unless you're Marik, in which case you can have attack points that end in --99.

** A few monsters have ATK or DEF stats that aren't divisible by 50. Castle of Dark Illusions has 920 ATK and 1930 DEF, Reaper of the Cards has 1380 ATK and 1930 DEF, King of Yamimakai has 2000 ATK and 1530 DEF, and Seven-Armed Fiend has 666 ATK and 666 DEF (1000/1000 in the Dub).

* [[Plot Tumor]]: The ultimate one, possibly. Originally, the manga ''was not about any specific game'', much less a single card game. He's supposed to be the King of Game'''s'''.

** Lampshaded in The Abridged Series. Yugi is just referred to as "The King Of Card Games".

* [[Powered By a Forsaken Child]]: Creating the Millennium Items required a sacrifice of 99 human lives.

* [[Power Levels]]

* [[The Power of Friendship]]: Prior to the card game [[Plot Tumor]], this was going to be the main theme of the series. It still has a fairly strong presence. Occasionally to the point of [[Narm]].

** [[Word of God]] says that it was the intended main theme the whole way through. The card game [[Plot Tumor]] just created alot of [[Misaimed Fandom]], that's all.

{{quote| '''Computer''': It looks like you're just pressing the same buttons over and over.<br />

'''Kaiba''': That's because I learned how to [[Hollywood Hacking|hack]] by watching old episodes of ''[[Star Trek]]''! }}

** To anyone unfortunate enough to lose to him. Joey is victim to this more often than not.

*** Tea, of all people, turns out to be surprisingly good at these, although she doesn't give them often. She gives one to Kaiba at Duelist Kingdom, although it's more of a "the reason Yugi is better than you" speech. Then there's the time she let Johnny Steppes have it for running away when his duel with Yami got too difficult.

* [[Recap Episode]]

* [[Redemption Equals Death]]: {{spoiler|Noah Kaiba.}}

* [[Reincarnation]]: Gets rather complicated. {{spoiler|It is ''heavily'' implied that Yugi is the other half of Atem that ''didn't'' get sealed into the puzzle and just sort of floated around until it was born again. Common [[Epileptic Trees]] is that [[Nice Guy|Ryou]] is something similar in regards to the ancient [[Big Bad]] Thief King Bakura (who more complicatedly never did a bad deed until being controlled by Zorc, a completely separate being). Seto (with Set) and Ishizu (with Isis) are straighter examples.}}

** It's ''slightly'' less complicated if you look at the Ancient Egyptian concept of soul. One of the key pieces being the "ren" or name implies Kazuki may have done this on ''purpose''.

* [[Rule of Empathy]]

* [[Rule of Symbolism]]: The author intended to have the cards represent the character and personality of their users.

** Most notable is what the Crump v. Tea duel in the Virtual World arc spawned.

* [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: An Ancient Egyptian card game, for starters...

** Kaiba manages this rule in the [[Tournament Arc|Battle City Arc]]. [[Screw Destiny]], I have money!

*** He also changes the future itself by following his instincts and {{spoiler|sacrificing his ancient god card to summon a Blue Eyes White Dragon to attack and win his game against Isis, whereas her clairvoyance had predicted he would attack with the ancient god and fall victim to the clever damage feedback trap she had set up. He wins the game instead of losing as destiny had foretold.}}

** Occurs within the series itself. Kaiba does it, of course. Pegasus, however, even makes special cards that never go into circulation just so that it gives him an advantage.

*** Didn't help him in the movie, much -- but his loss did end up giving Kaiba his best creature ever because of it, though, so Kaiba fans can't complain.

**** That's because, for some weird reason, Pegasus used the real-life version of the Toon cards, which possess so many drawbacks and so little support that no serious player would be caught dead using them. .

***** It's because you have to use life points to summon them, when really you could just use the normal versions instead.

** Really, the series is a poster child for most of the Screw The Rules tropes.

* [[Sculpted Physique]]: Many of the mons.

* [[Spared By the Adaptation]]: {{spoiler|Pegasus}} in the anime.

** Also, {{spoiler|Bandit Keith}}.

** Also Cyndia, although some spell it as Cynthia or Cindia. Then there's her dub name, Cecelia Pegasus, which becomes Cecilia, despite the fact that the proper dub name was shown in episode 40. It gets worse when people assume her original name is Cyndia Crawford, as she does not have a surname in the original.

* [[Split Personality]]: Not quite, since it's more like another person sharing their body, but it still fits.

** Because he's an American! And Americans always wear sunglasses!

*** In America!

* [[Synchronization]]: Between the duelists and their cards, to some extent. Showcased when Yugi's grandfather Sugoroku actually has a heart attack when he loses.

** {{spoiler|This is further complicated by Zorc's entanglement with Bakura, as Zorc has no beef with Yami, but only uses Bakura's.}}

** Subverted by both Marik/Yami Marik and {{spoiler|Zorc}} in the Japanese versions. Marik merely wants to torment the Pharaoh's spirit as part of revenge and Yami Marik wishes to torture and kill every living thing on the planet. {{spoiler|Zorc is just an evil demon fueled by the rage of the people sacrificed to create him, making him want to destroy everything}}. Even Yami Bakura's motives were unclear and didn't really seem to involve wanting to take over the world in the Japanese version. It eventually becomes clear that he really just seemed to subconsciously desire to collect the Items throughout the manga so he can {{spoiler|revive Zorc}}.

* [[Viewers Are Goldfish]]: Hey Yugi, remind me again, what does Pot of Greed do? Or how about flashing back to that play that happened one minute ago for those who missed it? Even if you have no idea how the card game actually works, you can follow every single duel in the later seasons because every single card will have at least ten seconds spent explaining its effect. Even if the card is used every single duel, its effect will be explained. This continued into ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh GX (Anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'', right up until Pot of Greed got put on the real-life banned list [[Real Life Writes the Plot|and the anime suddenly stopped using it]].

* [[Voice of the Legion]]: Marik.

* [[Waterfall Shower]]: First season has this.

* [[We Can Rule Together]]: Noah makes this offer to Yugi in the Japanese version of episode 118, after Yugi managed a formidable counterattack and after Noah turned some of Yugi's Nakama to [[Taken for Granite|stone:]]

* [[Wham Line]]: From episode 52:

{{quote| '''Ishizu Ishtar''': And the young man who stands behind the pharaoh... Above his head is {{spoiler|the Blue Eyes White Dragon.}}}}

* [[Wine Is Classy]]: In the original, there's a scene where Pegasus is drinking a glass of wine. For the dub, this got changed to [[Frothy Mugs of Water|"the world's finest fruit juices"]].

* [[Wok Fu]]: Yugi faces off against Vivian Wong inside a Chinese restaurant. His friends get distracted from their usual [[Power of Friendship]] cheerleading routine by all the food.

* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: Some minor characters, and Kaiba in the first anime.

** Although Kaiba's hair is technically green.

* [[You Would Make a Great Model]]: Happens to Anzu/Tea, who is promised a chance to be a dancer like she's always wanted.

* [[Zenos Race]]: Inverted with the pharaoh's backstory, seeing how more information is revealed from the early manga, to Duelist Kingdom, to Battle City, to the Millennium World.