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Why has Yu-Gi-Oh never had a more more accurate manga to anime adaptation?

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U

Uzumaki Goku

Junior Member
Yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh, the silly series about playing card games? Well, kinda. In Yu-Gi-Oh the manga as told by Kazuki Takahasi is about a young weak boy who desires to have friends, but one day after completing the Millennium Puzzle, a spirit takes over his body and challenges those who wronged him and his friends to games. As the series goes, Yugi makes new friends and enemies while learning the secrets behind the spirit whose body he shares. The card game doesn't come into focus until much later due to fan interest and the fact that it was conveniently merchandisable.

Yu-Gi-Oh has two anime adaptations. The first done by Toei Animation (of Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon fame) loosely (and I mean loosely) adapted the first 7 manga chapters but they also made some bizarre changes like turning Miho, a one-shot minor character in the manga into a full on main character and makes Kaiba into a more reoccurring antagonist. It also skipped many manga chapters for the sake of their own filler stories, this series didn't last long. Only 27 episodes which leads us into...

Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters. The much more famous anime adaptation down by Studio Gallop and dubbed by 4Kids. This version places much more prominence on the game Duel Monsters even rather haphazardly condensing the manga's first encounter with Kaiba and the entire Death-T arc into one episode. Shame really because much of the manga's character progression and moments were lost and Kaiba's arc in Duelist Kingdom makes a lot less sense in the anime than it did in the manga. It also took out some arcs such as the arc with Ryuji Otogi (Duke Devlin in the English version) in favor of adding in more card games.

But yet, there's never been an adaptation that faithfully adapts the manga to anime and I always wondered why that is. Changes between manga and anime versions happen all the time, but I always wondered: Why did Yu-Gi-Oh manga always get so rushed adaptations. Never was there anything that fully followed the original manga. That's a shame.
 
A

asagami_

Banned
It happen a lot in the industry, actually :( The same happened to Shaman King, but at least the anime was kinda good (and the OP/ED music were so good)
 
B

Betty

Banned
I was really shocked how good the manga is, I only read a couple of volumes but it was really inventive and fun and had nothing to do with cards
 
H

Hektor

Member
yanipheonu said:
Because the manga was fucking insane and involved groping machines and death games.
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I got the first few volumes as a gift when i was young because i was big into the card game.

I read up until the part that involved a chainsaw psycho and a baby shitting on people's legs.

my reaction
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BronsonLee said:
Ya I remember them playing ice hockey on a burning grill and was all wat
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If my memory serves me right, the puck was made of ice and had a bomb in it
 
K

Keasar

Member
yanipheonu said:
Because the manga was fucking insane and involved groping machines and death games.
Click to expand...

That was the awesome bit. Shit was downright sadistic at times with the loosing players loosing their souls, their minds, their sight, being lit on fire, explode and so much more.

And only one of the chapters during the first 7 chapters was about the fucking card game. The rest was stuff like stabbing yourself on the hand to pick up money. A tabletop RPG where the player characters and NPC figures contained the souls of people. Russian roulette (with deadly consequences). Tarot cards. Regular cards. And also a giant death maze involving traps, puzzles and a psychotic murderer with a chainsaw. And so much more.

It was great.
 
Z

Zalman

Member
Early Yu-Gi-Oh is insane. I remember being so confused at the difference between the anime and the manga back then.

The art style was awful though. Comparing the first volume to the last volume is night and day.
 
U

Uzumaki Goku

Junior Member
Keasar said:
That was the awesome bit. Shit was downright sadistic at times with the loosing players loosing their souls, their minds, their sight, being lit on fire, explode and so much more.

And only one of the chapters during the first 7 chapters was about the fucking card game. The rest was stuff like stabbing yourself on the hand to pick up money. A tabletop RPG where the player characters and NPC figures contained the souls of people. Russian roulette (with deadly consequences). Tarot cards. Regular cards. And also a giant death maze involving traps, puzzles and a psychotic murderer with a chainsaw. And so much more.

It was great.
Click to expand...

Well, Takahashi did make the card game more prominent but what I can respect is that ultimately he did stick to his guns and tell the story he wanted to tell.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
Because Yu-Gi-Oh, the franchise, stopped being about the manga and the story of Yugi Muto and the spirit inside his Millennium Puzzle.

It became about the anime, and more specifically, the newer incarnations that launch every 2-3 years. So long as these series still run, introducing new gimmicks, new cards, and new merchandise, there is no particular interest in remaking the original manga for a more faithful adaptation in its entirety. At best, there's the possibility of seeing new material vaguely set within the original timeline - which is precisely what Dark Side of Dimensions is.
 
U

Uzumaki Goku

Junior Member
JonnyDBrit said:
Because Yu-Gi-Oh, the franchise, stopped being about the manga and the story of Yugi Muto and the spirit inside his Millennium Puzzle.

It became about the anime, and more specifically, the newer incarnations that launch every 2-3 years. So long as these series still run, introducing new gimmicks, new cards, and new merchandise, there is no particular interest in remaking the original manga for a more faithful adaptation in its entirety. At best, there's the possibility of seeing new material vaguely set within the original timeline - which is precisely what Dark Side of Dimensions is.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is true, but like I said, I can respect Takahashi because ultimately the original manga is, and always was about Yugi and the spirit inside his Millennium Puzzle and it had a good ending on top of it too.
 
L

L Thammy

Member
With both of the anime, the violence was toned down. That much is probably to keep the rating down or maintain broadcast standards or whatever.

With the Toei anime, I get the sense that the animations just didn't care and wanted to do their own thing. I can't think of another reason why they chose to use filler over actual manga chapters, or why the events of the chapters the used shifted so much. They decided to use Tristan as a blank slate so they can use him for wacky comedy, but him and Miho end up getting more focus than the main characters half the time. It's so weird.

The Duel Monsters anime wasn't that far removed, for the most part. The events of Duelist Kingdom and Battle City were more or less the same (I think it's sorely lacking Pegasus turning Bandit Keith's hand turning into a revolver and making him play Russian roulette though). Obviously they had Konami's involvement, so they had to focus on the cards. The bigger part of the shift is due to the massive amount of filler. Still don't know why Duke Devlin's arc was massively changed though.
Also they pushed Yugi+Kaiba so hard

I actually like the situation. Each version gives you something a little different. The manga's got the crazy. The first anime has its own games, some of which I really enjoy. The second anime makes more use of the card game, which is strong because it's easy to follow and you can appreciate exactly how bad the situations the heroes pull themselves out of are. Especially after Duelist Kingdom, since the rules were still muddy up until that point. Though I'm admittedly much more into manga than anime; I can understand that some people might feel like they're missing out out the manga's content if anime is their preference.
 
Q

Quintin DM

Member
The original manga is certainly something else LOL. But ya it would nice to get a proper adaptation some day but I find the chances unlikely. That being said quite a few animes these days have been receiving the remake treatment these days so I guess the possibility of it happening isn't zero.
 
L

L Thammy

Member
My favourite anime exclusive thing is from the Toei one. Where some black guy (? I don't think he was supposed to be, but that's totally how they drew him) steals Tristan's watch, and so Yami Yugi sucks him into the clock dimension to play pendulum chicken. Then when he wins, he makes the guy hallucinate that he's fused with his watches.

NoblesseOblige said:
Didn't it even have implied date rape in one issue before the lead stopped the rapist?
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I don't know if "implied date rape" is the right word. She assumed that it was going to be someone else instead of him, and he's clearly copping a feel when he's knocking her out.
 
S

Semblance

shhh Graham I'm still compiling this Radiant map
Damn, the manga sounds like some wild ass shit.

I want to read it for that ice hockey on a burning grill bit now.
 
L

L Thammy

Member
Lord Frieza said:
Wow, this is closer to the original manga? This is nothing like the anime at all, wow.
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In the original manga it's not even a hallucination.
Also it's a different guy, but that's not as important.

Hyperactivity said:
Wait Yu-Gi-Oh wasn't a card game first?!!!!
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Nope! And the card game was boring as fuck in the first few chapters it appears. It's just laying down normal monster cards and maybe an equip card if they get fancy.
 
P

Pop-O-Matic

Banned
Hyperactivity said:
Wait Yu-Gi-Oh wasn't a card game first?!!!!
Click to expand...

Yeah originally it was an "asshole of the week" series where Yami Yugi would end up giving said dickhead their just desserts in some game (usually some dangerous improvisational shit) which would end with the losing party suffering some horrible fate. Then they introduced Kaiba and the card game as part of this cycle but they wound up being so popular that the author brought them back again and again until the manga was entirely about the card game and they started producing real cards to sell kids. This is why Duelist Kingdom's games had very little semblance of actual rules, since there wasn't a real game to base it off of an the author was making it up as he goes.
 
L

L Thammy

Member
Pop-O-Matic said:
Yeah originally it was an "asshole of the week" series where Yami Yugi would end up giving said dickhead their just desserts in some game (usually some dangerous improvisational shit) which would end with the losing party suffering some horrible fate. Then they introduced Kaiba and the card game as part of this cycle but they wound up being so popular that the author brought them back again and again until the manga was entirely about the card game and they started producing real cards to sell kids. This is why Duelist Kingdom's games had very little semblance of actual rules, since there wasn't a real game to base it off of an the author was making it up as he goes.
Click to expand...

Then at the end they drop the card game for something resembling Jojo's stands, albeit with life bars. It's actually better off with the cards, I think, since they don't do much with the idea beyond summoning monsters and you can't follow along as clearly as when you have a game with defined rules.
 
U

Uzumaki Goku

Junior Member
Pop-O-Matic said:
Yeah originally it was an "asshole of the week" series where Yami Yugi would end up giving said dickhead their just desserts in some game (usually some dangerous improvisational shit) which would end with the losing party suffering some horrible fate. Then they introduced Kaiba and the card game as part of this cycle but they wound up being so popular that the author brought them back again and again until the manga was entirely about the card game and they started producing real cards to sell kids. This is why Duelist Kingdom's games had very little semblance of actual rules, since there wasn't a real game to base it off of an the author was making it up as he goes.
Click to expand...

Remember Flying Castle Turtle Gambit?
 
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