So I've been meaning to do this for a while. And since I've got a bit of practice with Pokemon, Digimon and other assorted video games, I'm going to do Yu-Gi-Oh now! Yu-Gi-Oh is... a franchise with strange origins. Originally starting off as just a manga about a kid with an evil alter ego that's secretly the spirit of an ancient, forgotten Egyptian Pharaoh who challenges evil people to 'shadow games', one aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh (the title literally meaning 'King of Games') ended up overpowering everything else: a trading card game, based very, very loosely on Magic: The Gathering, that fans demanded return. And return it did, that it basically ended up being the main plot almost to the exclusion of all other aspects of the manga.A deal with a toy company to produce actual collectible TCG's and a very popular anime adaptation later, Yu-Gi-Oh ended up surprisingly being one of the longest-running TCG's out there, and has, at the time of writing, six separate anime seasons. Seven or eight, depending on how you count the spinoffs or 'Season Zero' adaptations of the original Yu-Gi-Oh.
And, I must admit, that like many 90's kids, Yu-Gi-Oh was what drew me into trading card games. That and Pokemon. But we're not here to talk about the viability of cards or whatsits, and I am probably a couple decades out of the loop to understand the actual game as a whole. I have dabbled in the game here and there by borrowing some of my friend's cards, and I've watched one of the newer seasons, Arc-V, back when it aired in... shit, 2014? Time flies, huh.Anyway, I wiffle-waffled on how to do this review, because the card release of Yu-Gi-Oh is... weird. There are a lot of promotional cards and side-packs and random little assorted stuff here and there, not to mention some cards that are exclusive to the Japanese version of the game, and... well, we'll be here all day if I was to talk about just how much exclusive-to-whatever cards are in the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. I suppose we'll just review the very first expansion pack in the TCG, all 126 cards in it.
Again, depending on how I feel while writing up this piece, I may or may not continue this series. In any case, we'll talk, as usual, mainly about the monster designs. We'll be including a break in this one, and I'll talk about a whole ton of cards that I don't have much to say about after the break. I'll try and make a point to say something about every single card in this one, though.
Click here for the next part.
Anyway, let's start off with one of the most notable and famous monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh, and the one that this entire expansion is named after. Unlike, say, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh expansions don't actually tend to have any sort of unifying theme and they will mix... basically anything under the banner of fantasy and sci-fi together, and in these early sets the cards are basically just an assortment of random cards that are used by the protagonists and antagonists in the anime and manga.
And Blue-Eyes White Dragon here is the signature card used by Kaiba Seto, the main rival/frenemy character and the antagonist of the very first arc. I'm not going to go too deep into the lore of the anime/manga itself because it's definitely something that I am somewhat waffling on whether to review on this site, but suffice to say that Blue-Eyes White Dragon was hyped-up to be one of the most powerful monsters back in the earliest stages of the manga. And... and, well, it's a pretty badass-looking dragon! It's like this pretty neat dragon seemingly made out of metal, and while I've always found the positioning of the limbs to be kind of awkward, it does feel kind of like one of those 'metal dragons' from D&D.
It's ultimately a pretty neat design that checks off all of the traits you expect to see in a dragon -- bat wings, a godzilla-dinosaurian body structure, and a generally badass-looking face. Blue-Eyes White Dragon manages to tick off all of the features a traditional European dragon would have, while at the same time also not looking too generic. Overall, it's definitely a very neat design to be one of the flagship mascots of the franchise!Also, a brief talk about the anatomy of these monster cards -- the amount of stars under the name is the level of the monster, and higher-leveled monsters are more powerful and tend to require extra effort to summon -- levels 1-4 can be summoned at any time, 5-6 requires a single tribute, while those above 7 requires two tribues. You've also got the 'element' on the top right of the card, something that honestly doesn't really come to play that much but is definitely a nice flavour bit. And, finally, on the text box below you see that the Blue-Eyes Black Dragon, is, shockingly, a [Dragon]. This is the Type of the monster, one of the dozen or so races that denote what the monster is. Also below it we get a little blurb describing the monster... which only exists for normal monsters, which, while the dominating population in this first set, is going to be phased out almost entirely in subsequent expansions because, well... as any TCG player knows, vanilla monsters tend to never really see actual competitive play.
Now, Dark Magician here (Black Magician in the original Japanese -- lots of censorship in these cards) is the flagship monster of our main hero, Yugi Mutou. And... and, well, as noted by his 'type', he is a Spellcaster. I do think that the same sort of design mentality went into the Dark Magician as the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, creating a design that is simultaneously iconic and unique, but at the same time still feeling like kind of a generic fantasy wizard without too much embellishment, something that many of Yu-Gi-Oh's successors definitely won't be. Basically another one of the cards in this franchise that has a whole ton of love due to being the main character's "ace monster", Dark Magician's... pretty neat! His conical hat, his bizarrely impractical-but-stylish collar, and that funky staff all lend to a pretty classic design.
What can I say? I grew up watching the anime, so I do have an undue amount of love for Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes White Dragon. They're pretty cool! Also, some of the prominent cards have different artworks, typical of TCG's... I'm not going to include them all, but for these first three cards, the alternate artworks are pretty prevalent. So.
Red-Eyes Black Dragon here is sort of the ace card of the 'lancer' secondary character, Katsuya Jonouichi (Joey Wheeler in the dub). And it's supposed to be the weaker counterpart to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, having similar names and being similarly difficult to summon... but Red-Eyes Black Dargon apparently being more "adaptable", supposedly, something that is decidedly not quite true at this point with Blue-Eyes White Dragon having a fuck-ton of variations and whatnot over the years. I'm also not sure why the English localization team shortens the name into "Red-Eyes B. Dragon"... it's not like they have a letter limit on these card names.
Red-Eyes Black Dragon follows the same metallic European dragon-dinosaur design that Blue-Eyes White Dragon has, but is clearly meant to look far more evil, with a decidedly more demonic and spiky face and a whole lot more edgy and angular compared to the Blue-Eyes' relatively 'softer' look. Which, ironically ends up being hilariously subverted when Blue-Eyes is used by the antagonistic rival character while Red-Eyes is used by the heroes.
I've always found it fascinating how the alternate artworks for Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes just seems to have the characters in different poses, but Red-Eyes Black Dragon's newer artwork really gave him far more menacing proportions -- more angular and shorter arms, larger wings, and less curves on the shape of his skull -- while keeping every single detail the same. Anyway, neat dragon! Not much to say, but it's definitely a pretty classic design.
I'm just going to go back and forth on the order of cards I review, and next up is Beaver Warrior. Who's... who looks more like a generic rodent than an actual beaver, but I absolutely adore his serious expression and that adorable dinky little sword he has. Beaver Warrior is also a card that I can definitely say I owned as a kid (and still own!). Beaver Warrior is apparently called "Louise" (or Ruiz) in the original Japanese, which... is it some sort of joke or something? I'm not sure.
Oh, and Beaver Warrior Louise is our first Beast-Warrior monster, which is basically all manner of humanoid beast-men so commonly seen in these fantasy settings. Most monsters that don't cleanly fall into Water, Fire, Wind, Light or Dark also tended to just be shunted off to "Earth", like Beaver Warrior here and the next couple of monsters.
So here's a funny thing about the translation of older Yu-Gi-Oh cards... in Japan, a lot of these monsters have names that are just straight-up English words. This card is called "Cyclops" in Japan (well, Saikuropusu, due to how the Japanese language works), but to preserve the "exotic language" feel when the cards are imported to the international market, their names are actually given Japanese names. Hitotsu-Me Giant here, with hitotsu-me meaning "one-eyed". Basically a significant amount of all but the most iconic cards and characters got their names somewhat changed -- "Dragon Egger" became "Ryu-Ran", "Critter" became "Sangan", "Thunderbolt" became "Raigeki"... It's not particularly consistent, but this is actually a pretty interesting way to handle localization, although they eventually dropped it altogether after the first couple of sets.
Anyway, Hitotsu-Me Giant is a neat cyclops that's 90% muscle, and a pretty grotesque-looking face with ears that are just a bit too far back in the skull to feel unsettling, and a very skull-like mouth. It's actually quite a creative take on the concept of a cyclops, which tend to be portrayed as fat ogre-beasts in media. This particular cyclops clearly lifts!
Another one of main character Yugi's cards is Gaia the Fierce Knight (what translates to "Dark Knight Gaia" in the original Japanese), who is of the "Warrior" type, which, as its name indicates, is basically all sorts of human or humanoid warriors. Gaia, in particular, seems to have greenish skin. He's kind of a pretty standard card that honestly is mostly iconic because I remember him a fair bit from the anime and manga. Always loved the two big-ass lances that he holds, and the fact that his weird purple horse also has little lances of its own on the sides of its helmet. Overall, while not particularly creative, Gaia is a pretty damn cool-looking knight on horseback. Can't fault him on that.
Okay, now this is easily one of the cooler-looking cards from early Yu-Gi-Oh, in that Curse of Dragon is one of the few early monsters that isn't just Yu-Gi-Oh's take on a particular type of monster. Also, the name... yeah, it's a carry-over from the Japanese version, which is literally just the English words "Curse of Dragon".But, shit, it's a cool-looking dragon that looks so distinct from the pretty normal-looking Blue-Eyes and Red-Eyes up above, isn't it? It's got this long, serpentine body with random spikes jutting out upwards and downwards from his 'pelvis', his wings look bony and thick, he's got these weird Zerg-like chicken-arms that end in claws, and his head is just this bizarrely weird shape that looks like it's just meant to just be as bizarre as ever. The whole thing just gives this appearance of a dragon cobbled together from bones, and really does feel like a weird wyrm-like dragon born out of dark forces. In fact, I do think that the weird-syntax name actually helps out in this case, making Curse of Dragon here feel far more bizarre than it would've been otherwise.
Gaia the Dragon Champion here is the fused form of Gaia the Fierce Knight and Curse of Dragon, and it's actually pretty tame as far as fusion monsters go, just Gaia ditching his horse to ride on the dragon, but the result it pretty damn awesome! A knight dual-wielding giant lances riding one of the cooler-looking dragons out there? Hell yeah! I'm also somewhat amused by the fact that when fused, they both have the element of "Wind" instead of Gaia's Earth or Curse of Dragon's Darkness.
Celtic Guardian (a.k.a. Elf Swordsman in the Japanese version), looking like Link's distant cousin, is another one that's pretty prominent in the early stages of the anime, and I remember him mostly as... well, kind of the 'jobber' of Yugi's deck, often summoned early in the game and getting defeated before Yugi summons one of his more awesome monsters to actually, y'know, win. Again, it's a pretty basic-looking warrior, one with a pretty distinct appearance and set of armour, but ultimately Celtic Guardian here is kind of a pretty boring card otherwise.
Mystical Elf (a.k.a. Holy Elf in the Japanese version) is a pretty defensive monster, and another one that Yugi used quite a bit in the early stages of the anime. She's a Spellcaster, and has blue skin. And... and that's about it, really.
Poor, poor Flame Swordsman! One of Jonouichi's star cards early on in the anime, Flame Swordsman isn't the most interesting monster out there, being just a dude with a flaming sword and an insanely impractical-looking headgear. It's kinda-sorta cool, but I really find him to be pretty underwhelming. The actual card used in the anime and manga isn't a Fusion monster, though, and just a regular old monster card that required a simple tribute summon. For whatever reason, when Yu-Gi-Oh was adapted into a card game, Flame Swordsman became a very impractical and still relatively weak Fusion Monster, created from some skinny dude that controls flames and a samurai combining together. S'weird.
Perhaps one of the most famous monsters in original Yu-Gi-Oh is Exodia, the Forbidden One, due to its prominence in the very first couple of episodes of the anime, as well as being one of the few monsters that leads to an automatic victory in the game. The concept of this set of cards is pretty interesting -- you have a couple of utterly weak and worthless monster cards in your deck, but when you gather all five pieces of Exodia, you unleash the chained Egyptian god and instantly win the game. Your opponent may control five mighty dragons and you might be left at 10 life points, but get all five pieces of Exodia? You instantly win. (As seen here in an infamous scene from the anime)
And Exodia is meant to be this immensely powerful Egyptian demon/deity that is so powerful that no single card can contain his power, and he's shattered into five sealed, forbidden pieces -- his four limbs, and his chest/head. Something that actually draws its basis from Egyptian mythology from what happens to the god Osiris, who was shattered into pieces by his enemies. The design of Exodia himself is also pretty damn neat even without going too deep into the mechanics, with Exodia himself being a pretty badass-looking titan seemingly made out of rock, with all sorts of Egyptian regalia forming the crest around his head and that fancy-ass Egyptian pharaoh beard.
Easily one of the most iconic set of cards in the show, and for damn good reason. It's one of those cards where the mechanic involved with the card is easy to understand (collect five weak pieces = victory) and the design is pretty damn awesome as well. I'm also surprised, somewhat, that Exodia's pieces are classified as "Spellcasters" instead of "Fiend".
Basic Insect here is... a pretty basic insect, being a pretty cartoonish insect kaiju of sorts, with a somewhat grasshopper-like face with a pair of anime-cartoon fangs, green colouration, claws at the tip of decidedly non-insectile hands, and... and spiky nipples for some reason. It's actually a pretty shitty card, and the Insect type is actually something that's sort of neglected as kind of the 'weak' archetype. I'm just going to go through a couple of other basic versions of other race-types. It's actually kind of fortunate that a lot of these earlier cards are pretty simple, allowing me to slowly break down the different Types out there.
Uraby here, meanwhile, represents the Dinosaur Type. I'm not sure what "Uraby" means, and my brief google doesn't really yield anything particularly conclusive on what it means. The original Japanese name is Wild Raptor, and while I appreciate how the translation team apparently recognizes that Uraby is decidedly not a raptor (no sickle-claws on the leg) I'm not sure where the name Uraby came from. Regardless, it's... it's a pretty neat dinosaur, I suppose.
Dark Gray here, meanwhile, is a representative of the "Beast" type, and it's... it's certainly a bizarre beast all right. Weird, alien-like eyes, goat horns and body, a huge flowing tail, and two tiny, ineffective bat-wings. Dark Gray is noted by its flavour text to be "entirely gray", and... and that's all we're going to get. What an utterly bizarre beast! Is it meant to represent, like, a version of Gray-style aliens? Whatever the case, Dark Gray here, with its bizarre look and art style, is certainly one of the more bizarrely memorable ones form this early set.
(Hey, I have this card!) Skull Red Bird here, or Sky Hunter in the original Japanese, is a pretty interesting creature, for sure! A member of the Winged Beast race, it is some sort of bird, but instead of feathers, its wings are made entirely out of blades. I absolutely love the fleshy part of the Skull Red Bird's anatomy that still juts out of its body around the knife-feathers, though.
Another Winged Beast that's less 'just a bird' is Kurama, another card that I own. Known as "Drake" in Japan, Kurama's a pretty cool-looking bird-man, with a very cool-looking set of bent wings, as well as the talon arms and legs that's pretty common with bird-men. I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn for "Beast-Warriors" and, say, a bird-man like Kurama, but it doesn't matter that much, really.
Misairuzame (Japanese for missile shark, his Japanese name is just "Nile") represents the "Fish" tribe, not to be confused with "Sea Serpent" or "Aqua", and I'm actually a bit baffled just why Yu-Gi-Oh have so many categories for aquatic creatures. Misairuzame is a pretty wacky looking creature, though, a puke-green shark with spikes all over his body, and, interestingly for a shark monster, doesn't really even display its teeth. And it's got a goddamn missile-launching cannon strapped onto his belly. Maybe that's why it keeps its mouth shut? Because if it opens its mouth, the missile will blow his lower jaw clean off?
Misairuzame is one of the many cards in this set that never actually made an appearance in the anime -- they actually split up a lot of the cards that are prominently featured in the anime over various early expansions, presumably to make the TCG packs more enticing to people like me who bought cards to collect the cards that the heroes use in the anime.
Spike Seadra here, meanwhile, represents the Sea Serpent tribe, and it's interesting how Yu-Gi-Oh makes sea serpents a whole tribe instead of lumping them into either dragons, reptiles or aqua. Spike Seadra is... he's kind of a boring sea serpent, if we're being honest, with a bunch of spikes, some bad hair and a weird set of forward-pointing tusks. Not much to really say here.
While we've got "Fish" and "Sea Serpent", there is a third tribe of water-based monsters, which is "Aqua", which... basically tends to mean water elementals, mermaids, and all sorts of things that live in water. Like Turtle Tiger over here, which is just... what? What is this thing? It's a saber-toothed tiger, who has gray skin for some reason, with a turtle shell, and what appears to be a tail that ends in a scorpion's sting. It's just such an entirely bizarre chimera of random animals! And if its tribe is anything to go by, it lives underwater? I'm honestly not even sure if it has hind legs or not, and the idea of this thing just waddling along on two legs like a bottom-heavy chicken is just hilarious in my mind.
Another one that's pretty prominent in the anime, Giant Soldier of Stone, despite being a gigantic soldier made out of stone, is actually a pretty weak monster whose biggest usage is as a defensive wall. I really do like the design of this one, with the hilariously stubby little sword that Giant Soldier of Stone has, and the cute, beady little eyes glowing inside the recessed parts of its face. Also, despite actually owning the card and playing him a lot as a kid, and seeing him in the anime it's not until now that I realize that those weird things on his shoulders are meant to be sword sheaths.
It's also one of the few Rock-type monsters in these early sets, and I remembered that there's not a whole ton of them, at least in Yu-Gi-Oh's early days.
Another type with an interesting pair of representatives here is the Plant type. And of course, one of the most obvious ways to do a plant monster is the tried-and-true Audrey or Piranha Plant style monster, a flower with a venus flytrap chomping maw at the end. And I absolutely love how Darkworld Thorns is the more badass-looking version of this, just being a Piranha Plant with a whole ton of spiky vines and regular flowers for good measure.
Meanwhile, Man-Eater tries to do the same thing, being a maw surrounded with flower petals... but it has evolved one step too much and instead of a cool piranha plant maw, Man-Eater instead looks like fucking Kermit the Frog with those wacky frog eyes and a reptilian maw. What a hilarious looking thing that Man-Eater is!
Dark King of the Abyss is the first Fiend-type monster we're going to be talking about. Fiends are, obviously, meant to be "Demons" in the original Japanese, but back in the 90's, the whole religious panic crowd really ended up causing localization teams to try and scrub out any references to angels, demons and religion as they could. Not that turning "demon" into "fiend" is really going to make Dark King of the Abyss any less demonic, mind you.
The Dark King of the Abyss doesn't have the most interesting design, just a snarling skull-faced demon with a vertically-slanted third eye, and some really, really long fingers. Pretty basic, but compared to other Fiends in early Yu-Gi-Oh like Summoned Skull (who is not in this expansion) the Dark King kind of really felt tame. Especially when we actually see his full body in the anime, which is just... a skeleton-dude in a robe. Interestingly, his flavour text does note that the Dark King "once had the power to rule over the dark", and that, combined with his low level, really means that the Dark King is... kind of a loser, really, and this story is actually going to be told over several cards in the future.
And that, I think, is one of the cooler aspects of Yu-Gi-Oh. I kind of understand the fact that the various anime series decide to highlight the actual players of the card, and there is scant little lore about whatever fictional setting inhabited by creatures like the Curse of Dragon or Turtle Tiger or Gaia the Fierce Knight, but once in a while, the card-makers decide to tell a story spread over various cards, and Dark King of Abyss is one of those.
What a bizarre creature! Ray & Temperature here is our first "Fairy" monster, and Fairy, of course, was originally "Angel" in the Japanese version, which explains why all of the Fairy monsters tend to have a more celestial vibe as opposed to things like elves and pixies. But, of course, you sometimes end up with a pretty abstract-looking creature like Ray & Temperature here, who is a spirit of wind and a sun with a frowning face that seems to be lifted off of some sort of classical painting, and is even based on one of Aesop's fables, the North Wind and the Sun. Which, in fact, is its original Japanese name.
It's a pretty weird and stylized-looking monster, and this stylization would end up being phased out as Yu-Gi-Oh ends up developing a distinct art style in the future.
Another one of the Types is "Thunder", and alongside Pyro, Aqua and Rock, it sort of fills the niche that traditional Western media uses "Elemental" to fill. I do like that Tripwire Beast is less of a monster manipulating electricity, but is just a fun, almost Dragon-Ball-style wacky beast with a cartoonishly spherical body and three random metal antennas that shoot out electricity. And it's called "Tripwire Beast" for some goddamn reason! Like many of the cards in this initial set, Tripwire Beast never really shows up anywhere, but I really do end up liking its wacky proportions.
Holy shit, it's Skull Servant! Known as "Wight" in the original Japanese, good old Skull Servant is one of the two only representatives of the "Zombie" type (Undead in the original Japanese) in this first expansion, and is famously remembered as the weakest monster of the game. But look at Wighty here! He just looks so pleased with that happy, dopey grin on his face and that waving hand.
Interestingly, Skull Servant ended up being pretty damn popular in the fandom -- rightfully so, look at his happy face! Partly because of its sheer weakness, and partly probably because Wight here has such a charming art associated with it. Many, many expansions later, support cards to support Skull Servant would actually be printed, making Skull Servant one of the few weak, non-prominent-in-the-anime cards from these early sets to actually be relevant later on.
There's not a whole lot of Effect Monsters in the original set, huh? Effect monsters are basically the bread and butter of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, because more important than just a monster with stats is a monster that does something when it enters the field. While originally distinguished with an orange-y brown border (a distinction that blurs due to the differing quality of card prints and scans), these effect monsters are basically the main sort of monster seen in practically everything afterwards. In the original set, though, there are only five -- with one of those being the main Exodia body up above.
Man-Eater Bug is a card I remembered owning, and I really did like this card! It's a simple card, which you set face-down, and when it gets flipped by any effect, it just blows up one monster in the field. Its design is pretty neat, too, being, well, a humanoid insect-themed monster. I do love its bizarrely bestial mouth and the fact that the face looks far more reptilian or mammalian than insectile, and I do love how he's got two gigantic claw-fingers and a skinny, almost skeleton-like body covered with chitinous armour.
Why is this card called "Fiend Reflection #2"? Where is #1? Certainly not released anywhere in the TCG. And Fiend Reflection #2 is actually just called "Mirage" in the original Japanese, so I'm genuinely not sure what the fuck's going on. Fiend Reflection's a pretty neat design, though, apparently this three-eyed bird monster with two sets of claws, two sets of bat-wings, and it has a mirror that takes up almost its entire torso-abdomen area and it summons demons from the mirror. It's actually a far more intricate design than it originally seems, and compared to a lot of the other monsters in the original set, Fiend Reflection #2 is surprisingly pretty neat!
Mammoth Graveyard is actually a pretty badass name, and being a giant, snarling walking skeleton of a mammoth, it's actually a pretty damn impressive looking beast! There's just something about elephants that honestly makes them pretty scary, and turning one into a goddamn snarling skeleton is definitely pretty damn effective -- it just looks so weird to see the skull with the elephant's gentle lips and distinctive trunk-nose gone, yeah? It's also a neat little reference to the mythical legends of the elephant's graveyards, which is neat! Also, I remembered one of the earlier "our rules aren't defined yet" duels in the anime where apparently you can fuse Mammoth Graveyard into other monsters to 'corrupt' them with the undead essence of Mammoth Graveyard.
Most interestingly, though, is that Mammoth Graveyard is neither considered a zombie, a fiend, or even a beast. It's a fucking DINOSAUR, which I'm just going to assume someone fucked up somewhere.
A card that I actually own, Hane-Hane borrows its name from a Japanese onomatopeia meaning either 'feather' or 'wing', but Hane-Hane the monster is... is this floating nose-shaped head with closed eyes, a row of teeth without a lower jaw, and a bunch of feathers sticking out of the head. It's also got a pair of disembodied hands holding a scythe. And yet, despite all of this, it's... it's a beast, and not a fairy or spellcaster or fiend or something mystical. This bizarre thing has always fascinated me as a kid. Is Hane-Hane rising out of a pool of water or poking his head and hands out of wood? Is he just a disembodied head and arms that attacks people? What is Hane-Hane?
Larvas is another beast that looks utterly bizarre. What is this thing? It's just a humanoid-like figure whose body just... stops at the hip. It's got this weird, somewhat frog-like face, and a chevron-like forehead piece that looks like it came from a Gundam, gigantic scalloped shoulders, and two arms that end in pointy claw-nails. Does it just... does it just scoot around on the ground like a snail? And this 'beast' moniker is utterly bizarre, with his face really looking like he's some sort of reptile, and his arms and name looking more insectile than anything.
And then you read the description, which describes Larvas as a "bird-like creature"... from what part, Konami flavour text writer? And somehow with those finger-less arms, Larvas apparently "strangles" enemies. Honestly, this thing is just so utterly bizarre, and probably slapped together at the last minute, but it all ends up making this bizarre thing extra-charming and weird for its sheer lack of effort.
Meda Bat (meda meaning 'eye') is a pretty funny eyeball monster, and I always love eyeball monsters! It's a pretty classic one, with bat wings, and a bunch of random demonic features like those clawed arms and a whip-like tail and little horns on the eyelids, and it's even a nice, cute shade of purple! It's a pretty neat-looking monster, for sure! A big fan of this one, although that's my own personal bias.
This little buddy, for whatever reason, is called "Dark Napoleon" in the Japanese version.
Trial of Hell is a pretty interesting fiend/demon monster, actually, and the picture doesn't really tell us just what it is, showing a sword with a glowing skull-eyed hilt piercing a black coffin. Its flavour text offers more explanation, though, telling us that the monster is the sword, and it passes judgment on those that are locked within coffins, which is a pretty neat concept for a 'lesser' demon. I'm surprised that they actually released this card as "Trial of Hell", when they censored pretty much anything outright religious sounding in Yu-Gi-Oh, though they did later rename the card as Trial of Nightmare.
Meanwhile, King Fog (or King Smoke in Japanese) is a pretty funny looking fiend, too, just a gigantic billowing cloud-genie with a sneering demon face. And it's holding a pair of swords seemingly made out of fog or smoke, too... but the most hilarious part of his design? That goofy-ass wacky crown it has on its head. That just makes the design be so hilariously whimsical to me.
Since we're talking about Fiends, let's talk about Witty Phantom, who's just... a dude with pointy ears and dressed in a pretty fancy suit and holding a hat. It's honestly a pretty benign looking Fiend, especially compared to far more obviously demonic creatures like, say, Dark King of the Abyss or whatever, but it does play into the cheery, friendly devil-that-makes-deals-with-you trope so commonly associated with demons and devils.
Witty Phantom's Japanese name is actually pretty damn awesome, "Majin Death-Satan", with 'majin' being a term that loosely translates to demon-man. Suddenly the Witty Phantom doesn't seems so harmless, huh? I remember that the Witty Phantom, while never actually appearing as a card, is actually himself an antagonist in the virtual world arc of the anime.
Nemuriko, literally meaning "sleep child", is a pretty weird thing, isn't he? He's like this weird pointy-eared child sucking his thumb, but instead of a normal body, he's got... what is that? An eel's body? A mermaid's body? A worm body? And while the artwork does look mermaid-like, with an aquatic background, Nemuriko is instead Dark-type, and is classified as a Spellcaster, and it's apparently "able to control a sleep fiend to beckon enemies to eternal slumber". Pretty damn bizarre!
Another one of my favourites from this early set is the utterly bizarre Two-Mouth Darkruler. It really would've been so easy to just have a two-headed dinosaur creature, like, a dinosaur with two heads. But instead of going for the obvious route, Two-Mouth Darkruler instead is a bizarre lizard monster with one bulbous, long head pointing forwards with a horn growing out of its nose, as well as beady little eyes. The other mouth? It's located on the dorsal side of its neck, growing out of its neck and apparently, according to his flavour text, shoots out electricity stored by the horn. What little we can see from his body is also utterly weird, with massive muscles on his front legs that terminates suddenly into a bird's talon-ed feet.
What an utterly bizarre monster, the Two-Mouth Darkruler! I guess that's why they call this thing the Two-Mouth instead of the Two-Head. Easily one of the weirdest and coolest design from this set, for sure.
"Kumootoko" literally just means Spider-Man in English, which is why this dude's name is not changed. I do like the bizarrely cartoonish proportions of this humanoid spider, though. I don't think I've seen a lot of humanoid spiders in fiction that just involves the spider standing up -- usually people go for different sort of proportions, like driders (spider-centaurs) or humanoids with spider legs sticking out of their back. Kumoootoko is just a giant spider whose two back legs have transformed into human legs, albeit with green striped stockings for some reason. S'neat.
Tyhone here is a pretty bizarre looking winged beast, huh? He's just this sphere with an almost elephantine trunk that apparently doubles as a fucking cannon that shoots out real cannonballs, and it's got two stubby legs and a pair of bat wings. It's the sort of monster that feels like it is a starter enemy from a SNES-era video game, and that's definitely a significant boost to Tyhone's charm.
Okay, let's talk about a bunch of fusion monsters, and their components. And I do like this pair a whole lot! Firegrass is a pretty funny-looking plant monster! It's this giant stump with a very grumpy, irritated looking face, and growing from its head is a pair of Bellsprouts with their own grumpy-looking eyes. And instead of shooting seeds, apparently Firegrass's little head-buddies just spray fucking fire at people! And... despite all this, its element is still Earth. It's honestly a pretty fun-looking, if ugly, plant monster.
Petit Dragon is a pretty wacky looking dragon, too, having no legs, and just a serpentine body and wings. Most hilariously, though, is the fact that instead of a traditional reptilian head, Petit Dragon has... what could be described as Pac-Man's face with teeny-tiny cat ears. It's just such an utterly bizarre excuse for a tiny, small and ineffective dragon! Petit Dragon honestly barely even looks like a dragon!
And when a wacky Pac-Man worm-dragon combines with a grumpy fire-plant, they combine into Darkfire Dragon, a whirling serpentine wyrm shaped vaguely like an oriental dragon, with hands holding orbs. It's honestly a pretty neat combination that actually does feel like two monsters fusing into something that borrows elements from both of them, creating something unique but still making sense as a fused form.
Another petite monster is the Petit Angel, who is... a cute, adorable little ball-face thing with a donut halo, little angel wings, and stubby little limbs. I'm pretty sure that the donut halo is removed in all subsequent appearances of Petit Angel, though, who actually did show up in a couple of subsequent spell cards in the future. It's a pretty neat-looking fairy/angel creature that isn't humanoid, though, and definitely pretty dang cute! I think Tea/Anzu uses this card in the anime.
Mystical Sheep #2, or Sleepy in the original Japanese, is... he's honestly kind of boring, just a cartoon sheep with bizarre horns (what are those dark purple things?) and a hideously long rat-tail that it uses to swing a hypnotist pendulum. Also, not sure why they feel the need to highlight his bum. (Mystical Sheep #1 is a card printed later, for whatever reason, and only in a tournament-exclusive pack) Definitely not super-memorable.
Fusionist is... I'm not sure how you take a hypnotist sheep and a sphere-angel and end up with this black cat with bird wings and a horse tail. Hell, if anything, Fusionist really felt like he probably hung out with Dark Grey or some shit. Fusionist is sort of memorable for the sheer uselessness of spending two monster cards and a spell card to summon a pretty weak-ass monster that is honestly not much better than something like Skull Red Bird or even freaking Tyhone that you can just play without going through all the trouble.
Armaill is... it's a bizarre-looking humanoid thing in a suit of armour that apparently has a lower body that is some sort of a metallic snake, and he fights with three swords or some shit? It's a pretty neat-looking weird monster, I guess, but I'm not particularly enthused with this one.
One-Eyed Shield Dragon is kinda funny, actually! It's a legless green dragon with a bird's beak, some sort of wacky visor on his face, a frog's mouth on his tail, and a shield attached to his chest! It's just such an utterly wacky and derpy-looking dragon that comparing it to the likes of Blue-Eyes, Red-Eyes or Curse of Dragon just makes this thing look so goddamn hilarious! I completely forgot this card existed, and honestly, with the sheer amount of badass X-Eyed Y Dragon in the franchise, I really find it hilarious that somewhere in Yu-Gi-Oh's forgotten history is this utterly bizarre dragon with a shield as a belly warmer.
Those two weird-looking monsters fuse together into... Dragoness the Wicked Knight, who is just... some lady in armour with bat-wing accessories. Really kinda boring, if we're being honest, and extra disappointing due to the wackiness of its fusion materials.
Lesser Dragon is... he's sort of the boring, weaker cousins to all the badass dragons in the franchise, being essentially just an overgrown lizard with a vaguely more humanoid set of proportions, and spikier claws and fangs. I mean, you have to be pretty weak to be called "lesser" anything, although in my opinion he still looks a lot more badass than One-Eyed Shield Dragon. I do like the lore noting that Lesser Dragon is so weak it's incapable of breathing fire, explaining its Wind element.
Steel Ogre Grotto #1 has a name that makes absolutely no sense at all. "Steel Ogre"? That part makes sense. The dude's basically a robotic humanoid, and it's big and made of steel. Steel Ogre, that makes sense. "Grotto"? Grotto, and I quote a dictionary, is a small cave, especially one that is made to look attractive. A "Steel Ogre of the Grotto" or even "Grotto Steel Ogre" would make grammatical sense, even if neither the artwork nor the lore says anything about caves or grottos. Hell, the Japanese name even translates into something more akin to "giant idol of steel", so what the hell, translation team?
Anyway, Steel Ogre Grotto is one of the two Machine-type monsters in this first set, which includes robots and metallic golems of all sorts. Don't worry, subsequent sets will introduce waaaaay more machine monsters. He's a metal golem. He's neat.
Huh, Metal Dragon is... he's kinda cool, actually! A long, Eastern-style serpentine dragon made entirely out of train-like robotic segments? Ending in the head of a Western-style dragon? We're going to have a whole lot of robotic dragons in the future, but Metal Dragon's actually a pretty neat-looking, if awkward, one. And, hey, dragons are cool and robots are cool, so a robot dragon? Pretty dang cool.
We've been talking about this card throughout the entire review, so here is Polymerization, or just "Fusion" in the original Japanese. Polymerization is such a cool name to describe "combining two things into one", though! I've basically said all there is to say about this card -- easily one of the most fun, if simple, concepts. I've always loved the wackily stylized artwork for Polymerization, too.
Also, note that the early sets waffle between "Magic Card" and "Spell Card" for the green-bordered 'instant use' cards, before exclusively using "Spell Card", presumably because they don't want to step in the toes of the TCG juggernaut Magic: The Gathering's shoes.
Another one of the more recognizable cards due to its usage in the anime/manga, Swords of Revealing Light also has a name that's just pretty damn badass to say. Not really all that much to say, but the visual imagery of several swords made out of light trapping a monster and forcing them to remain immobile for several turns is always been pretty cool.
Monster Reborn is another Spell card that saw a whole lot of usage in the anime and manga, being able to resurrect a monster from either your graveyeard or the enemy's -- and this versatility ended up causing it to be basically banned in the actual official TCG. Monster Reborn's original Japanese art is straight-up an ankh, playing into the Yu-Gi-Oh manga/anime's Egyptian-based mythology, but the international artwork has turned it into... shit, how do you even describe that? Some sort of Sailor Moon wand, I guess? It's cool. Anyway, there's a lot of censorship in Yu-Gi-Oh's early days. I won't point out everything, but yeah.
Dark Hole just straight up fucks the board, killing everything present, and I remembered really loving the artwork for this card. Black holes are always cool, and I've always loved spell cards in TCG that just have a huge effect.
Raigeki is another one of those cards that have an English name in the original Japanese source material ("Thunderbolt", in this case), and is given a Japanese-sounding name in the TCG. It just straight-up murders all of your opponent's monsters for no cost, basically making it a superior Black Hole.
"What does Pot of Greed do" is kind of like a meme of sorts in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom due to how many times the show tends to rely on explaining the effects of Pot of Greed (draw two cards) to help pad out time. Pot of Greed is a pretty fun card, though, just being this pot with a disturbingly fleshy grinning face carved onto it. Honestly, it's probably not so much a carving and that the Pot of Greed is some sort of demonic pot or something. Easily one of the most iconic cards in the franchise for a reason.
The third main category of cards other than Monster and Spell is Trap cards, which are placed face-down on your side of the field and tends to be activated on the opponent's turn on a specific trigger. "You activated my trap card!" Trap Hole here, with a pretty memorable artwork of a pretty grotesque-looking goblin thing trying to claw out of the hole it's fallen in, is probably the most basic trap card ever -- when your opponent summons a big monster, it falls down a hole and dies.
And after this break are all of the other cards that I really don't have a whole lot to talk about. Mostly just some of the Normal monsters that never really had a major role in the anime/manga series, and a bunch of spells and traps -- which I'm definitely not going to really be able to find a whole ton to talk about.
First up on this segment of the review is Silver Fang, who is... just a wolf howling at the moon. I actually remember this card as it's used a couple of times in the early parts of the anime series, but... y'know, it's just a wolf. A cool-looking wolf because wolves are cool, but when you have the option of summoning cooler-looking shit like mutant dragons, "just a wolf" ends up being kind of boring.
Flower Wolf is another Fusion monster, this time a fusion of Silver Fang and Darkworld Thorns, which we covered up there. And it's actually hella disappointing. It's a far less cool-looking wolf than Silver Fang is, and instead of having any of the piranha plant like features from Darkworld Thorns, it's got... a bunch of pink leaves? M'eh.
Tri-Horned Dragon is admittedly a pretty cool-looking dragon, with a hilariously cartoonish crocodilian face, and is sort of a more wacky, cartoony European dragon compared to the far more traditionally badass Red-Eyes and Blue-Eyes up above. It's... it's just a cool dragon, and while I do like its design, other than "it's a cool dragon" I don't have much to say about it.
Not to be confused with mere beasts, or dinosaurs, or beast-warriors, or winged beasts are the Reptile race, which is honestly kind of redundant -- and honestly, pretty much forgotten for a fair bit. Drooling Lizard is a pretty bland lizard-man monster, though, pretty bland even by that standard.
Oh, hey, I own this card! Aqua Madoor is a water-based spellcaster, and he's... he's got a cool mask, and some really fancy-ass hair. He's otherwise just kind of a spellcaster, though that cool mask definitely does wonders to making him fairly more memorable than some other generic spellcasters.
(What does Madoor mean, anyway?)
Armed Ninja, known by the far less impressive moniker of "Blue Ninja" in the original Japanese, is one of the few effect monsters in the original set, and it's actually surprising how little cards early on have any sort of effect at all. Armed Ninja is... kind of a boring ninja, though I suppose that weird sickle-spear does admittedly look pretty cool.
Another one of the rare effect cards in this first set is Reaper of the Cards, who, like Man-Eater Bug, destroys a card when flipped. It's a pretty simple-looking traditional Grim Reaper, honestly, although I really like the fact that it's not just a grim reaper. It's a reaper of the cards, and that makes it super-scary in a world where children's card games is everything. I remembered Reaper of the Cards making a couple of smaller appearances in the anime, too.
Kagemusha of the Blue Flame is just another boring Warrior, this time being some sort of a ninja-samurai dude. There's actually a bit of a mistranslation here, where the original Japanese name is actually Shien no Kagemusha, meaning "Body Double of Shien", with Shien being the name of a character that'll be pretty prominent in an archetype. Instead, they translated Shien into "Blue Flame" and took Kagemusha as the name of the character. Whoops! Thankfully, this card is honestly pretty forgettable both as a playable card and as anything flavourful.
Another wacky monster is Armored Starfish here, which is... which is a bizarre, presumably gigantic, starfish with a rocky exterior and what seems to be some sort of anemone in its core. Starfishes are some of the weirdest animals in the real world, and while Armored Starfish isn't as exciting as the dragons and two-mouthed darkrulers in this series, I do appreciate that this thing exists.
Huh, the actual name of the card, The 13th Grave, is pretty neat, and the whole concept of an undead skeleton that rises from Plot #13 in a graveyard is also kinda neat, but from a design standpoint, The 13th Grave is just a far more boring version of Skull Servant.
Succubus Knight is a six-armed demon lady! That's... that's classified as a Warrior instead of a Fiend for some reason, despite "Succubus" being right there in her name. Also, you can totally see the awkward photoshopping done to cover the cleavage and extend her dress all the way up to the neck -- in addition to photoshopping out religious references, a lot of female characters got their artworks censored, regardless of how much they needed it. In Succubus Knight's case, though, I really felt like it wasn't super necessary.
Meanwhile, this weird-ass fat orc dude Terra the Terrible is classified as a Fiend. Which... what is this guy, even? I'm not a particular fan of... of anything about this guy, really.
Flame Manipulator and Masaki the Legendary Swordsman are the fusion materials for Flame Swordsman up above, but they are both far, far less interesting than the Flame Swordsman, and never even appeared in the anime. Flame Manipulator's just some dude in a sleeveless shirt that can control flame, and Masaki's a pretty generic samurai dude.
Actually do like this card's hilariously silly flavour text. Monster Egg is apparently considered a Warrior, and despite just being an egg with a pair of eyes within, it's apparently a warrior hiding inside an egg, and attacks enemies by flinging eggshells. I do kind of enjoy egg-themed monsters like Digitamamon from Digimon, but Monster Egg's just honestly kind of boring.
Hinotama Soul, meanwhile, is one of the two Pyro-type monsters in this entire expansion, and it's sort of the counterpart to Thunder, Aqua and Rock, I guess, as 'elemental' style monsters. Hinotama Soul (or Sting in Japanese) is kinda boring, though, just a fireball with a face.
Hinotama Soul fuses together with Monster Egg to form... Charubin, the Fire Knight (a.k.a. Killer the Fire Knight in Japanese), who's just a boring old knight-dude with a chained mace weapon. And honestly? Pretty damn shit -- you need so much effort to summon Charubin here, when Frenzied Panda below can just be played from your hand and it has more power than Charubin does.
Dissolverock is a pretty bizarre monster that, while born in the lava pits, is apparently just a rock ooze monster with an angry face that dissolves things. Really felt like the artwork could've communicated his lava part a lot better. And really could've been Fire-type. Hell, he's even called Magman in Japanese! But no, he just looks like a pile of sentient turd.
The Skull Servant, from way up above, and Dissolverock can be fused to form Flame Ghost, who's... who's a walking zombie-ghost thing that looks like it's actually been doused instead of being on fire. Definitely nowhere as charming as Skull Servant!
Frenzied Panda here is just an angry, snarling panda. Other than the joke of subverting the expectation of cute, cuddly pandas and turning it into an actual killer bear, though, it's kind of a boring monster.
Sand Stone's actually kinda cool, and deserves a cooler artwork, really. It's some sort of giant rock kaiju shaped vaguely like an eyeless Godzilla, but one arm ends with Wolverine claws, and the other has a whole ton of vine-like whips sprouting out of it. Also, its tail also ends in a mouth. It's just such a shame that it looks more goofy than awesome, though.
Enchanting Mermaid is just a green-skinned mermaid, and not a particularly interesting one. I do find it interesting that Enchanting Mermaid is considered a "Fish", while practically every other mermaid in Yu-Gi-Oh's future is going to be considered "Aqua". Regardless, her role as a boring, generic mermaid is sort of eclipsed by the far more prominent Red Archery Girl in the anime.
Also, as you can probably tell by her pose, the original Japanese artwork was completely toples, with the mermaid's arm covering her breasts. And instead of giving her some thematic shell-bras like most mermaids have, they instead gave her a random tank-top from Walmart. Okay?
The Furious Sea King is... I dunno, he's kind of a weird creature, clearly meant to be some sort of fishman or merman or whatever, holding a trident and apparently being a king of sorts, but he's also got pitiful level and stats. Not a particularly big fan of his weird horse-snake face, either.
Meanwhile, Root Water sort of plays the more overt monstrous fish-man angle, and, like the Enchanting Mermaid, is considered a 'Fish'. Root Water's more obviously fish, though, and I really actually do like the very gangly arms it has, the serpentine, eel-like body, and the pretty ugly face it has.
It's kind of interesting that the Green Phantom King is actually classified as a Plant, and he's apparently some sort of an elf-like being that's more plant than human (elven?)... but I really wished that they had gone all the way and portrayed more than just his hand as being made up of plants.
Spirit of the Harp is... I do like that this Fairy-Angel lady is apparently the manifested spirit of a harp, something that's a pretty neat little fantasy trope, but there's really not much going on here otherwise.
Hard Armor is kinda funny, I suppose. A living suit of armor is a pretty common monster trope, but Hard Armor moves the 'face' from where the head would be to instead having the face be engraved onto the chest and stomach piece of the armour. It's otherwise pretty boring, though.
Oh, there's a bit of getting some crap past the radar here! This card, which is otherwise a pretty unremarkable naked grinning dude, is called "Hono no Majin" in Japanese, translating roughly to "Flame Devil". The localization team opted to call him Fireyarou, and -yarou means "bastard" in Japanese. It's kind of a hilarious name and honestly the only real interesting thing about this card.
M-Warrior #1 and M-Warrior #2 are two pretty boring masked warriors that look utterly generic, so much that their names don't even make particular sense. Their Japanese name? "Magnets #1" and "Magnets #2", despite neither of them having any sort of magnets on their body. While I do appreciate that they have this "our stats are swapped" thing going on, they're just so boring, aren't they?
Karbonala Warrior is the fused form of the two M-Warriors, and, no, he doesn't have anything to do with magnets. And manages to look significantly less interesting than the M-Warriors, who at least had this pretty neat faceless-mask deal going on. Honestly, the only notable thing that Karbonala Warrior has is being named after Italian pasta. Pretty damn boring, honestly.
We'll breeze through these spell and trap cards pretty quickly! Remove Trap is probably one of my favourite ones, being utterly literal in both effect and artwork. (I also own this card!)
You got to have your potions, apparently. Red Medicine is kinda boring, but, Goblin's Secret Remedy is apparently... blueberries? Very tiny blueberries? Or something?
Sparks and Hinotama (Fireball in Japanese) are just another pair of "shoot spells at the enemy!" This is back when spells are actually meant to represent, y'know, spells and not just events happening.
So I don't think I mentioned it anywhere earlier, but monsters tend to alternate between attack and defense positions in this game. Stop Defense here has a pretty fun artwork of Sir Generic Knight here with a simple white cross on him, though. No means no, Sir Knight!
I've always loved just how... visceral Fissure's artwork looks with those clawed fingers desperately trying to claw out of the fissure.
No, Final Flame isn't a Vegeta attack.
Gravedigger Ghoul really feels like it should've been a monster instead of a spell card, honestly. The flavour behind this one is pretty neat, being this nasty-looking ghoul that digs up the corpses from your enemy's graveyard, a pretty ghoulish thing to do for sure.
There are other types of Spell cards -- Continuous, Field, Equip and Quick-Play in the early stages of the game. And, well, Equip spell cards like Dark Energy and Legendary Sword here are basically equipped to one of your monsters, giving them a buff of sorts and acting like an item. These early Equip-spell items are basically just, well, pictures of items that specifically buff a specific tribe of monster. I highlighted these two because, well, kinda own them. Pretty straightforward, really. Dark Energy buffs Fiend monsters, while Legendary Sword buffs Warriors.
And all of these buff their own personal tribes and types of monsters. Highlights among these is the pretty flavourful bit of Mystical Moon buffing Beast-Warriors, referencing lycanthrophy, as well as Vile Germs being a weapon you can give to your plant monster -- and it's such a bunch of adorable-looking vile germs, too! I'm not quite sure why Laser Cannon Armor is meant to buff Insect-types instead of Machine-types, although it's probably just a holdover from the manga. I did vaguely remember the insect-themed villain-of-the-week using a cyborg insect one time, so that might be true. Raise Body Heat's meant to buff dinosaurs, but that artwork decidedly doesn't show a dinosaur.
Field spells basically are placed on a specific part of the gaming field, and permanently changes the field of battle until otherwise removed, often depicted in the anime as creating a holographic surrounding around the players. It's clearly a homage to the Land Cards in Magic: The Gathering, and where the Equip Spells play on the Type of monsters, these Field spell cards play on their element. I also find it neat that three of them have English names (Forest, Wasteland, Mountain) while the other three have Japanese names (Umi, Sogen, Yami).
Not a lot of Trap cards in this first set, huh? Two-Pronged Attack here is... it's pretty boring.
Dragon Capture Jar is a card that fucks up Dragons, and that face is clearly the face of someone who really, really wants to rain on a Dragon-using player. That infinity symbol means that this is a continuous trap card, meaning it effect goes on indefinitely until someone destroys this card. It's not quite as charming as Pot of Greed, but it definitely looks neat.
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