A Look Back at Season 1 of the YU-GI-OH! Anime
When Yu-Gi-Oh! came out, I was the perfect audience. I was a kid in elementary school who loved watching my Saturday morning cartoons. The question comes out though, does the show hold up? What season is best now that there have been so many seasons and even series of the show based on a children’s card game? I’ve been revisiting the anime of my childhood and thought I’d share some of my thoughts, one season at a time. We’re going to start with the very first season (not counting Season 0).
Yu-Gi-Oh! offers an anime about a boy named Yugi and his friends who play a game called Duel Monsters. This first season follows the Duelist Kingdom arc and is a great introduction to the show. We quickly learn that Yugi uses his Millennium Puzzle to tap into ancient mystical powers bringing forth the spirit of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. This power introduces us to the subplot of the first series where the different villains all want the power of these magical items dubbed the Millennium Items (with the exception of Marik from Season 2 who cares more for the power of the three Egyption God Cards). So the plot is essentially kids playing a children’s card game while the bad guy tries to get Yugi’s Millennium Puzzle for nefarious reasons.
Then, we’re introduced to a game full of really cool-looking monsters and effects that look awesome when animated. Apparently, hologram technology has just been developed for the game and this is the coolest thing ever. The only problem is that it raises a lot of questions that we never get answers to. In the show these holograms can cause people to become injured. How? It leads to ridiculous moments like Atem claiming that somehow the use of holograms is what caused Solomon Muto (Yugi’s grandpa) to lose in the first episode.
Another interesting part is the fact that they don’t play by the real rules of the card game. During the whole first season they play with extremely arbitrary rules that don’t make sense half the time. This leads to some really awesome moments and ideas as well as some really dumb ones. Unfortunately, this also led to many people not playing the game properly when it did come out.
Honestly, while the actual card playing in the season is utter nonsense, there are really cool moments and the writers did some really interesting things with bending the rules to give us memorable moments. When Atem beats Panik by making the Castle of Dark Illusions fall is brilliant. There is also the duel against Bones where Call of the Haunted and Zombie-type monsters are completely broken. And who can forget the first ever tag team match in the show against the Paradox Brothers. Not only was it the first 2v2 match, but they changed all the rules of the game with the Labyrinth.
One of the great things about the first season is that it really does do a good job of introducing us as viewers to the characters. Yugi is the boy who just wants the best for everyone and always does the right thing, Tea won’t shut up about the power of friendship and is completely useless, Tristan is possibly more useless than Tea as he does literally nothing (Tea at least helps Yugi gets 10 star chips), and Joey is the tough softie mixed with comic relief. These introductions happen fairly early in the season allowing for some kind of character development to occur as the season progresses.
The first season isn’t exactly the most well-written piece of anime (screw you 4Kids), but it is still fun to go back and watch. All you have to do is accept the fact that the rules are always changing with the needs of the protagonist. After the Duelist Kingdom arc, we got the very brief filler featuring Rebecca and then the very underrated filler of the Dungeon Dice Monsters episodes (I want Dungeon Dice Monsters to make a comeback! I think with some reworking, it would be a great spin-off). The adventure is pretty wacky, but it’s all fun. The cards in this season may be outdated, but I do think this is the best place to start anyone’s Yu-Gi-Oh! anime journey.