Did the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Start Off Right?

[@JanjoZone]

Enjoy videos like these & want to see more? Check out my Patreon to support the future of the channel! > www.patreon.com/c/Janjo

[@Signerdragon123]

Technically, in terms of game breaking stuff, it started better than the OCG, but that's the only point I give in the TCG's favor on topic.

[@duane_313]

The initial Pokémon hype ended 2002ish. I remember us kids all gathered around the playground table to watch kids duel while these two lonely looking kids were in distance playing Pokémon cards with no one watching. Pokemon was “played out” is what everyone was saying in my middle school. The video games however (ruby, sapphire, and fire red leaf green) were still kool. It was just the cards, tv show that at that point we weren’t taking seriously anymore.

[@JanjoZone]

Gen 3 was great!

[@duane_313]

@@JanjoZone Pokémon is still the biggest selling media franchise of all time. 💯I like to think Yugioh won that battle in 2002-2005. But Pokémon def won the war!

[@SonicLegends]

@@JanjoZone I wouldn't even consider that Gen's 3 fault since we got it in 2003, if anything more of a problem of how Gen 2 ended as don't think Pokemon Crystal which came out in 2001 and thus the following year nothing of note came. Doesn't help when looking back at Crystal it didn't do that much as a standout enhanced third version with only of note being the entering battle sprite animations when you compare it to the likes of Yellow which literally anime inspired plus get all the starters and then Emerald with stuff like double battles being more prominent and the popular edition of the Battle Frontier in giving that want of challenge thus replay value and then Platinum fixing up the issues that plague Diamond and Pearl. So yeah way Gen 2 ended and nothing coming out of 2002 when every other prior year there was something for most kids to talk about and do.

[@SonicLegends]

@@JanjoZone Additionally, think movies is a factor too since in Gen 1 the anime with Togepi/Ho-Oh earlier Gen 2 sightings plus the movies with Donphan/Marill showing hyped up the upcoming next stage whereas compare that to Gen 2's way of ending things which while the anime did hype up Gen 3 it was at the tail end only with Ash's Johto League battle with a trainer named Harrison who had a Blaziken and Kecleon, but they were the only ones to my memory of advertisement and compare how the movie year differences such as how Lugia's movie 2000 came out said year for the anticipation of Gold and Silver the following year and yet something like Pokemon Heroes for Latios and Latias which had a limited run in a few theaters on opening weekend with minimal promotion plus it came out for us in 2003 when it should have instead came out in 2002 if they wanted to create some buzz for kids for that empty year (plus again actually promote it).

[@jaredwilliams1031]

I remember it fizzling even earlier than that. People forget that Digimon took over in the very tail end of the twentieth and kind of kept the foreign-import, battles-with-monsters craze active for a few minutes before Yu-Gi-Oh took off.

[@Adam-lw9xp]

I kind of wish someone other than 4KIDS would obtain the License. I think kids could handle the sight of guns and a little blood. Heck, when I was a kid, seeing blood was a regular thing whenever I scraped my knee on the sidewalk.

[@JanjoZone]

4Kids be 4Kids I guess

[@Shadowrulzalways]

The point was, the Japanese version anime was aimed primarily to a teenage audience. 4Kids censored it because they wanted to target it to children. The Yugioh franchise was never aimed at young kids in Japan. Especially the OCG since it’s age range is 12+ and has been since 1999. The manga was published in Weekly Shonen Jump who the recent chief-editor himself confirmed is for boys 15-18 and has confirmed this in both Japanese and English interviews. And their are articles dating back before he even took the position confirming the same thing.

[@scorpionsapprentice3248]

i want to know why it took upperdeck so long to print blue eyes ultimate dragon when blue eyes shining dragon, a tcg original, was printed 15 months prior and was completely unplayable for that time period.

[@JanjoZone]

Good idea for a future video!

[@scorpionsapprentice3248]

@@JanjoZone one thing that surprises me is how the yugi starter deck had cards printed in ocg series 2 while change of heart and daemon summon were commons that were reprinted as ultra rares in MRD. while good cards that would be like printing megamorph and the forceful sentry in the kaiba deck in advance. UDE's distributions in the TCG were pretty arbitrary especially when crush card was first printed as a champion promo and then in the gold series while the OCG had it in structure decks. so my question is that if the starter decks were more accurately representing the anime decks but only using series 1 cards then what should they change?

[@duane_313]

I didn’t know about Magic the gathering until many years later so when I first saw Yugioh cards I too thought of it as a darker edgier version of Pokémon. Something “new”. But when I first saw the commercial for the tv show prior to that I had just head “cards” and assumed it was a rip off of card captors 🙄which I was already a big fan of at 11 years old 😁 def wrong, totally different series haha

[@duane_313]

I love how you put the old article scans/screenshots into your vids. 🤩 I love media archives so kool to see what the US press was saying before Yugioh even got here

[@JanjoZone]

A lot of research went into this!

[@duane_313]

@@JanjoZonegreat job!

[@Blue_EmeraldX]

Someone still had that letter?? I threw mine away, 'cause yeah, all it says is, "congrats, here's a card, keep watching Kids' WB." I know people have said the letter is kinda like a certificate of authenticity for that first-print Summoned Skull, but man, I was 11, I didn't care, and it's not like the letter had Dan Green's autograph on it or anything. =P But yeah, I actually won BOTH the Summoned Skull card and Dark Duel Stories from that contest! 😁 (I still have that Summoned Skull card, too). I was beyond hyped, 'cause I'd never won a contest before (and I don't think I've won one since)! I think my copy arrived sometime in January? I remember it was still winter. I wonder, though, was it only the first 250 copies that had Blue Eyes, Exodia, and Dark Magician in them? I remember being jealous that everybody ended up getting better cards from the later edition of the game. 😅

[@JanjoZone]

Hey that's awesome! Congrats!

[@aboundingvampirekiller2048]

Technically, Yu-Gi-Oh wasn't meant for kids.

[@thecompareablezombie]

Indeed

[@JanjoZone]

Sure, but it was on KidsWB, which is mostly watched by, yknow, kids

[@duane_313]

Yugioh fan se in Japan were def boys in elementary and middle school. I guess the US just have a different idea of what’s acceptable for kids.

[@Nothers90]

But they keep censoring the artwork

[@ZETA14.88]

​@@Nothers90 that's just american being prude and religious

[@JasonCrozier-h9r]

I feel like you should do a more extended video on this if you get the time that would be awesome. Love your videos. Thanks so much, Jason.

[@JanjoZone]

Maybe one day!

[@martinhennigan1113]

I'm so excited for the Switch collection of early Yu-Gi-Oh games. I love the Manga and the original Duel Monsters anime. I'm baffled by the post 5Ds Yugioh and being able to enjoy the early days of games will be nostalgic and fun.

[@JanjoZone]

The collection should be fun!

[@Pancakes4everyone42]

Yeah I'm really excited for it too. I wish we'd get some news about it soon

[@joseortega7815]

That beautiful artwork of the early days ❤

[@JanjoZone]

Great art!

[@Zanji1234]

tbh looking back...without the Anime i don't think that this game would have been so successful. Looking back at the starter decks (Seto and Yugi) as well as Yugioh you basically had ONE deck to build. If you wanted to play competitivly you HAD to get 3 Kaiba Starters just because of La Jinn since he outclassed every other monster in LOB at level 4. Compare that to Pokemon where (even in the first set) you could bulid more decks of kinda equal power, heck even the First Digimon Game had out of the box i think 4 decks playable. For very long you basically had a set and most of the monsters (if they didn't had a good effect) were utter unplayable so you basically just looked at the stats and compared to La Jinn. And don't get me started on the spells / Traps. From the first set most of these cards (except for a VERY few ones) didn't see play at all. There were some "alternatives" (like Share the Pain if you didn't had fissure) but even they were completly outclassed by others in the same set. My gaming group and i were one of the first in our region to offer tournaments and the deck difference between kids and players that had a) the knowledge and b) the money were HUGE.

[@JanjoZone]

The anime had a major factor, I agree

[@christiancinnabars1402]

If you go back a bit further, without the anime being as popular as it was, the game wouldn't even exist. It would have just been a footnote in this Egyptian themed series about various games.

[@Zanji1234]

@@christiancinnabars1402 it's still facinating that the Anime actually was getting this big. I mean during the 00s Anime WAS huge and that this anime got that popular is kinda impressive

[@SakuraAvalon]

@@christiancinnabars1402 No, not at all. The mangas one off introduction of the card game got so popular, it was brought back. The demand for an actual card game lead to Bandai producing their own YGO card game, and Toei animation making their own anime. Konami wanted to get in on it, and made the video games. Eventually, Konami was given the greenlight to make their own YGO card game(the one we're familiar with), and they used their video games as a basis. The anime we got in the West, was commissioned to follow the manga(skipping a huge chunk of the start of the manga) to promote Konami's take on the card game.

[@traplover6357]

"Satanic views, which it does" nah, its just Egyptian mysticism 💯 gotta fool my parents somehow 😂

[@JanjoZone]

Surely

[@DaakkuuYRS]

I wish I and my friends had known the rules back then in elemtary school. All we did is collecting cards and it sucks when you think about it. To be fair, my country dosen't have Yugioh cards in our language so I guess it is fine, but we didn't even try. At least I've fixed that later with video games and playing online.

[@JanjoZone]

Yeah I never knew how to play Pokemon TCG for the longest time

[@duane_313]

What country?

[@DaakkuuYRS]

@@duane_313 israel

[@TrevorAllenMD]

This video is so well made. +1 sub, very interesting topic that’s not very well fleshed out.

[@JanjoZone]

Thank you! Hope you enjoy all the videos on the channel!

[@wobbieadam]

Just had to read Mysterious Puppeteer's original printing out of curiosity... what a mess

[@JanjoZone]

It's wild

[@g-56]

2:36 WDYM IT DOES ??? Now I'm interested, I NEED a video about THAT statement

[@sebreezethelegion8793]

Bro what? It's literally ancient Egyptian mysticism based on their practices and demon gods. Yugi is literally possessed by a spirit and they all summon "monsters" which are just evil spirits (demons) that they cast out of criminals through some sort of egyptian exorcism using Magick. Strong monsters require "tributes" to summon them, RITUAL monsters especially-- which is a reference to animal and human sacrifice. I could go on tbh there's much more in the cards 😂

[@alrome9182]

Great video like always!

[@JanjoZone]

Thank you thank you!

[@Treaxvour]

Love the video and research. I was 10 when the starter decks first came out. I got 1 yugi, and 3 kaiba. Later on, i wanted more dark magicians, but the new starter decks at that time had a different art. I was kind of disappointed that it wasnt the same. Never knew why they changed it.

[@JanjoZone]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@terrysyvertson9205]

konami obviously wanted to make sure everything was ironed out and the rules finalized before releasing it in North America

[@JanjoZone]

I don't even think they knew what they were doing lol

[@KenichiSmith]

So Summoned Skull was the first card ever seen in the manga and thus ever, and also the first card to reach western shores.

[@jaredwilliams1031]

I knew about lawsuits, but that '26' figure seems kind of incredible. I wonder how common that behavior is between major merchandisers like this. Props for the research on that. "... Because it does, " Actually, I have a pet theory that there are at least as many Biblical analogues in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime during the DM and Battle City arcs as there are in LOTR. Yami and Moto play two sides of the same person in a similar way to how Frodo and Aragorn are both separate Christological parallels, the shadow games are a general metaphor referring to spiritual warfare, the monsters are like the angels and the saints, and the way the Pharoah shuts away the powers of the Millennium Items in the distant history of the in-universe setting is not unlike a kind of victory over sin. Pegasus' Millennium Eye is like the eye of Sauron, and Pegasus, himself, has much in common with Saruman. The way Yugi Moto shows mercy and compassion to his enemies even when they are fundamentally undeserving - frequently winning them over - is another hermeneutical arrow towards a kind of hero you might see in Tolkien; I actually think the first few seasons of the show emphasized friendship more than Pokemon did. Anyway, it just a pet theory I toy around with off and on. Fascinating stuff, as always, Janjo bro.

[@SROValkyria]

That's the content I like to see :)

[@JanjoZone]

Glad you liked it!

[@woofwoofdoggo]

Thank you

[@JanjoZone]

welcome

[@imkingnoobuwu4326]

Honestly yugioh truely started in starter decks yugi and kaiba

[@JanjoZone]

Considering it was the first thing with a rulebook, it's hard to disagree

[@SakuraAvalon]

It's crazy to think all of this, came from a one off chapter in the manga.

[@neonthunder3261]

Awesome vid

[@JanjoZone]

Thank you!

[@0f128]

Lmao never heard those rumors where Japan had holograms duel disk, i know they had the best cards

[@Lucario1121]

I recently started kinda hating the whole comparison people have between Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! like, I get it they both are Saturday Morning classic shows but like, at the end of the day they are both completely different shows and plots. One is about monster catching while the other is based on a trading card game. It's basically comparing apples to oranges.

[@JanjoZone]

Yes but the marketing between the show & the games (both card & video) are a reasonable comparison.

[@Shadowrulzalways]

It’s sad to watch an anime that was primarily targeted at teenage boys in Japan, get watered down and censored for young children. I mean, didn’t the studio not understand how Shonen works in context of manga and anime? As I have stated numerous times, shonen manga and anime primarily target early to late teen boys. Between 12 and 18. Weekly Shonen Jump is confirmed by Hiroyuki Nakano (recent chief editor of WSJ) to be for teen boys and articles dating years before he was ever chief editor even confirm the same thing. English or Japanese articles. Take your pick. Even the Japanese WSJ site confirms “target Jump readers; teen boys”. And the Yugioh OCG is advertise for ages 12 and up in Japan. And has been since 1999 when it first started. I even owned the volume one pack to find out and I bought it on Ebay… Wasn’t cheap…

[@mikomontes9911]

Yugioh history for rush duel for the future,hahaha

[@JanjoZone]

Perhaps. But I'd do Speed Duel first lol

[@arrownoir]

It somehow got massive.

[@JanjoZone]

Funny how that happens

[@Tirgo69]

This is random but wow, what a huge moment landing the rights to the Yu-Gi-Oh anime was for 4kids. They arguably still exist to this day ONLY making Yu-Gi-Oh dubs.

[@Tirgo69]

Wow, they pushed the premiere back?? I have a sampler VHS advertising the original Sep 15, 2001 release date.

[@JanjoZone]

@@Tirgo69 It was a good move on them for sure!

[@allovertheworld5048]

4kids getting the rights of yugioh was one of the worst mistakes Konami made

[@connermorgan9223]

Do you really think yugioh would have grabbed a generation of players if 4kids didn’t make it well…for kids when it came out?

[@madlucian4623]

4kids gave us the shadow realm 😂😅

[@JanjoZone]

It helped bring it over to the west at least! And many other anime many would see for the first time

[@ZoeyCrimson]

Uhh… how does it promote satanic views? Lol