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Summoned Skull is actually Yugi's original ace monster, from the stories of Yu-Gi-Oh before the card game segments. See, Yu-Gi-Oh the manga actually ran for quite some time with Yugi alternating between various twisted games before going full-on into the card game thing when they had a great merchandising partnership going on... and poor Summoned Skull ended up sort of glossed over as just one of Yugi's many monsters, with Dark Magician ending up stealing the mascot status.
Anyway, Skully here is actually a pretty neat skull Skully is originally known as "Demon no Shokan", or "Demon's Summoning", with the specific wording being a homage to how old Magic: The Gathering card would describe monsters, Summoned Skull is a pretty hilarious example of how censorship fucked over future translators. See, in this original expansion, "Demon no Shokan" is just one of many standalone monsters, and the word "demon" is a no-no even if the artwork very clearly is depicting a skull-faced demon, so they decided to go with "Summoned Skull", and used "skull" for every other iteration of Summoned Skull's variants. So far so good, but for whatever reason, the next time Yu-Gi-Oh released a bunch of monsters with the word "Demon" in the original Japanese, the translation team ended up translating them into "Archfiend" instead... and turns out that all the cards translated as "Archfiends" were supposed to tie to Summoned Skull. Whoops, silly translators!
The manga/anime didn't actually have a proper rulebook or actual defined versions of the cards to work with, so it just did whatever, and tended to use fusion monsters to climatically end duels. One of the early duels featured a tag team between Yugi and Joey/Jonouichi, and they fused their monsters, Summoned Skull and Red-Eyes Black Dragon, into this dude, Black Skull Dragon. I am not sure why "Black" is shortened, honestly. Of course, this dude is known as "Black Demon's Dragon" in the original Japanese.
Red-Eyes Black Dragon is honestly already pretty skeletal, but combining the features of both does end up resulting in a pretty damn badass-looking beast, combining the Red-Eyes's lanky body with the over-exaggerated proportions of Summoned Skull's massive claws, horns and wings. I am also a huge, huge fan of those ridiculous shoulderpads that Black Skull Dragon ends up having thanks to the fusion.
Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts is a monster that I don't really find visually appealing. It's just a lion with an extra horn and a vaguely semi-humanoid set of proportions, but I mostly remember him for showing up a whole lot in the anime as used by Yugi, especially in the Battle City arc. I do really love the name, though, particularly in the English dub where the voice actor really does a great job hamming it up while saying the name. Honestly, that's easily one of the most fun moments of watching Yu-Gi-Oh in either the original Japanese or in an English dub, just how voice actors handle saying these gloriously long monster names with a straight face.
I've always found it silly that a clearly feline beast is called "Gazelle", and that it's the King of all mythical beasts for some reason. Like Summoned Skull, the actual term that the original Japanese card used was "Genju", or phantom beast. And don't get me wrong, "Mythical Beast" is a pretty badass translation. If only they didn't forget it when they ended up making new "Genju" cards in subsequent expansions that the translation team translated as "Phantom Beasts". Whoops!
AH YES HERE IS MY PRECIOUS FUR BABY. There is a lot to love from Yu-Gi-Oh. Giant skull demons, mighty dragons with various ocular colourations, magicians of dark magic, cyborg knights... but I really, really love Kuriboh with a passion. See, I actually got a couple of Metal Raiders packs before I actually watched the anime, and one of the cards I got from them was this exact card of Kuriboh. And... and while the other cards I got depicted things like mighty Viking-men and chubby dragons, one card in particular stood out to me, and that is Kuriboh. What is a "Kuriboh"? Why is it so hilariously weak, with stats not reaching four digits?(The name "Kuriboh" roughly means "chestnut person", and it's the same name as the original name for the Goombas in the Mario games.)
And why is it of the evil Dark element, and it's a Fiend? And also, why the shit is it so adorable? Kuriboh is just... it's just the right mix of adorableness and "okay, maybe it can fuck you up"-ness. It's a huge ball of brown hair with the most adorable set of eyes, and its four green limbs end with adorable claws that look like they can poke your eyes out. And I love Kuriboh. And then I read an issue of the manga, and was pleased that Kuriboh made an appearance... and then I watched the anime, and Kuriboh was adorable there... and apparently, it's pretty damn prominent, too! Even if the anime/manga version doesn't actually have the same effect as the card in the game. Honestly, alongside the Dark Magician, Kuriboh might very well be up there as one of Yugi's protagonists, and it's actually spawned a whole lot of variants in subsequent spin-offs.
And honestly? I am pretty glad that they went with Kuriboh when they chose to pick a cute mascot for the franchise. It's very damn adorable, and I'm definitely happy that the production team for the show love Kuriboh as much as I do.
Sangan here is Kuriboh's less famous cousin, and it's interesting just how changing a couple of minor details ends up resulting in a completely different looking but still charming monster. The three cat-like eyes and the wide, fanged grinning mouth, in conjunction with the longer arms, end up with a look that ends up looking far less cuddly and far more threatening-looking creature than Kuriboh is. I've actually forgotten how many times Sangan showed up in the anime/manga, actually... I guess they just didn't want to overshadow good old Kuriboh!
I do like Sangan a fair bit, although I obviously have a lot more attachment to Kuriboh up there. Sangan is actually another one whose name in the original Japanese is just a single English word -- Critter -- and ended up being called "Sangan" for the international release, with "Sangan" meaning "three eyes" in Japanese. The pun, that kuribo and kuritta starts off with the same kuri- sound, wouldn't have translated in English anyway.
Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress #1 is another card I had as a kid, and another one that Yugi briefly uses a couple of times in the anime. I am genuinely bamboozled of his hilariously long name, or the number at the end. The original Japanese card had a name that translates into "Fortress-Protecting Winged-Dragon", but what we got from the translation team is just hilariously unwieldy and long. And there's a number for some reason.
I kinda like the stylized, old-school anime chibi art style for Winged Dragon, with those rounded features on the cartoonish face. Also, the artwork doesn't show it, but the anime makes it pretty clear that Winged Dragon does, in fact, have wings -- they're pterodactyl wings that flow out from under his arms!
Feral Imp, known as "Gremlin" in Japanese, is a pretty funny-looking imp! Sure, he's a fiend, and has the requisite claws and demon wings, but I can never take Feral Imp's dumb looking cat face seriously. It definitely has that early Yu-Gi-Oh charm where the monsters sort of looked whatever. The anime adaptation made Feral Imp look way more badass, but I really do miss the dopey anime-Dobby face.
Catapult Turtle is definitely a card Yugi uses too, and I really love this bizarre robot turtle! It's got a badass looking robot beak, and I also love the fact that its legs are like wheels on an office chair. The most distinct feature on Catapult Turtle is, of course, the huge sci-fi catapult on its back, which functions sort of like one of those Gundam takeoff pads. This is to represent Catapult Turtle's effect, where it straight-up just launches monsters on the side of your field as kamikaze bombs -- they die, but they deal instant damage to the opponent and bypass whatever defensive monsters they have. Catapult Turtle was definitely used a couple of times, and depending on the writer, it's just another monster with a cool effect, or a horrible thing to do because how dare you sacrifice your monsters in a card game all about summoning and sacrificing monsters.
Ryu-Kishin Powered is a pretty badass looking dragon-demon! Sure, he might not be as impressive as Black Skull Dragon up there, but I've always liked the look of this monster. I am 99% biased because I also have a card of him, by the way. It's got pretty huge, spiky shoulders, a cool dragon-like layout, and he's got... anime hair growing out of his back or something? Ryu-Kishin Powered is a stronger version of Ryu-Kishin, a card that only saw print in the Starter Deck: Kaiba set... and I guess I should do a review of a bunch of cards that are only printed there, huh? I'm still not sure if I'm ever going to dip my toes into reviewing cards exclusive to box-sets and promotions and whatever.
Ryu-Kishin means something along the lines of "Dragon Fierce-god", while the original Japanese called both Ryu-Kishins "Gargoyle"... something that the flavour text actually sneaks in, despite them changing the actual name.
Saggi the Dark Clown is one of Kaiba's more frequently-used monsters when he's not summoning Blue-Eyes White Dragons or the XYZ series of monsters, and he's... he's certainly a creepy-looking clown! Saggi here wouldn't be quite as memorable if his mask (face?) isn't that bizarre, though, with some pretty dang fashionable asymmetry. Honestly, the rest of Saggi's design is pretty mundane as far as monster clowns go (we have a couple more in this expansion) but that face? The mouth that's half grinning and half smiling? One eye closed with a friendly star and one eye being set a pretty mean-looking glare? It's definitely what made Saggi so cool and memorable at the same time. And the anime tends to portray Saggi to be quite... hilarious as he capers about. Not one I particularly love, because I personally don't like clowns all that much, but one that is definitely recognizable despite not trying to be too flashy.
Ah, the Time Wizard. The anime/manga series' most reliable deus ex machina! Again, back when the cards aren't actually properly printed, the series could just do whatever, and Time Wizard's effect is "spin a roulette, and cause monsters to age until they're old, and/or be destroyed, depending on what is needed". This led to some ridiculous situations like making enemies' monsters get old and decrepit... or sometimes making an allied monster get old and achieve their true, aged form. It's a funny bit of zaniness that the anime definitely lost when it tried to adhere a bit closer to the TCG.
Time Wizard's design has always been one of my favourites, and I realize now that I might just really like spherical chibi creatures with big googly eyes. He's a clock wizard with googly eyes, cute pointy shoes,, gears for both his hat and shoulderpads, and adorable little arms holding a staff where the Time Roulette is located. Oh, and that hat might very well have a second pair of eyes! And he's got a fun cape! Definitely a huge fan of Time Wizard here, and of his effect as well.
And here's one of the effects that happened in the anime/manga's earlier battles. Baby Dragon isn't super impressive, and design-wise he's pretty damn generic. Sure, he's an anime chibi dragon, but he's just kinda there. But then with an application of the Time Wizard's time-warping powers, he gets aged something fierce and becomes a level 7 dragon, the Thousand Dragon, and I really do like how the art communicates that, yes, Thousand Dragon still shares all of the same features as Baby Dragon, but is so much older and has assumed a more hunched-over pose. The addition of random beards is also pretty fun! Also, when Thousand Dragon stands up he is actually a pretty badass dragon.
Again, it's a shame that this effect ends up being reduced to a very impractical Fusion monster with no effect in the TCG.
Kojikocy here is one of Jonouichi's monsters that was pretty minor and served as a punching bag. He's got a very uninteresting design, too, just a half-naked Viking-esque warrior with an impressive beard. But I have his card, which makes him 120% more memorable personally! Which is why he ends up being 'rescued' from the after-the-break cards.
Witch of the Black Forest is kind of a simple-looking spellcaster, just being a lady witch with a third eye on her forehead, and a fourth eye jutting out of her chest. I just sort of included her here because I also own a copy of her. Yugi uses this card when he fights Yami-Yugi at the end of the original series!
Harpie Lady! Otherwise known as "that one that needed to get censored". Used by Mai Valentine/Mai Kujaku in the anime/manga, Harpie Lady is sort of the obligatory sexy lady monster... and this oriignal Harpie Lady isn't actually that bad. It's her subsequent sisters that really ended up needing to get censored. Although part of it is probably because Harpie Lady having a sky-blue skin tone, making her a bit less sexy. Of course, the international releases of the anime and subsequent reprints of Harpie Lady would go the route of "paint over her exposed breasts and belly", making Harpie Lady look like she's wearing a bodysuit. It's not the most interesting look for a harpie, but definitely not an unpleasant one!
Two of the 'spinoffs' for Harpie Lady are also released in this expansion. The spell card Elegant Egotist (Kaleidoscope in Japanese) allows Harpie Ladies to basically swarm the board, and one particular card, Harpie Lady Sisters, can only be summoned in this way. It's basically a primitive version of Ritual Summoning before that became a thing. It's kind of annoying, because I remembered having both of these... but no Harpie Ladies, making them entirely useless if I were to play the game with them in my deck.
And Harpie Lady Sisters basically represents three different Harpie Ladies (each of them would get their own individual cards in the future) fighting together. And these Harpie Lady Sisters have human-coloured flesh tones and golden armour! And said armour are notably censored, because the original version had nipple-spikes on the armour to play with the... BDSM-esque theme? Eh, they're... they're kinda neat, but that might just be my nostalgia allowing them a pass.
Let's go to a more obscure card, Doma the Angel of Silence. He's the Angel of Silent Death in the original Japanese, but that's a close enough approximation. He's one of the few early Yu-Gi-Oh monsters to be able to keep the title "Angel" even when the entire race has been renamed to "Fairy". And I think that, combined with the pretty badass-looking artwork, is what made younger-me really impressed by how unsettling Doma looked. Those pupil-less eyes, that bizarre fork-like scythe, that huge eyeball embedded on his shoulder for some reason, a pair of devil wings and angel wings... Doma isn't as viscerally scary as something like the Summoned Skull, but I've always found him to be pretty dang unsettling. He's also notable for being one of the very few Dark-type Fairies for a long, long time.
Definitely not to be confused with the Doma organization from the original Yu-Gi-Oh anime, which is a pretty bland doomsday cult that was the antagonistic focus of a filler arc that ran for way too long.
Illusionist Faceless Mage (a.k.a. Illusionist No-Face) is another one of my favourites from this set, and, again, I'm highly biased because I own a copy of him. He's a card prominently used by Pegasus J. Crawford (or his far superior and posher-sounding dub name, Maximilian J. Pegasus), the main antagonist for the first arc of the Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters anime and manga. And Illusionist Faceless Mage doesn't really make quite as big an impact as Pegasus's real deck, the monsters from which we'll see in the next expansion, but I really do like this utterly bizarre spellcaster, and it really shows just how much the line between 'spellcaster' and fiend' blurs in this franchise. Hell, I'm not sure if Illusionist Faceless Mage is even human at all -- I really do find the smooth face devoid of all features other than a pair of lips to be pretty creepy, but those two random puppet dolls sticking out of his shoulders just push the design to the top.
Like Time Wizard, Dragon Piper (Jar Djinn in the Japanese version) is another one that the manga/anime treats as basically being able to do anything relating to its fantasy, basically manipulating all sorts of jar-themed cards. We only ever see Dragon Piper do so in tandem with the Dragon Capture Jar, a Continuous Trap card we saw from the first expansion, though, which is why his eventual TCG effect ends up being so limiting.
It's a pretty fun design, though, with the body of Dragon Piper being just a huge jar with a crude face moulded on to it, two robotic arms ending in Mickey Mouse gloves, and a decidedly non-human one-eyed face with a turban blowing on a flute. And it's a "Pyro" monster, too, not a Fiend as you would think a "majin" would be. Neat!
I am not going through this in any order, but the Metal Raiders expansion does include a set of four cards used by Insector Haga (Weevil Underwood in the dub) which, while pretty damn impractical in the actual card game, is still regardless a pretty fun set of Insect cards! The weakest version of the Moth family is Petit Moth, who isn't an actual moth but just an exaggeratedly lumpy and long caterpillar, and unlike its larger cousins, it's a normal monster that doesn't really do anything by itself.
That is, until you use the card Cocoon of Evolution, which represents the Petit Moth caterpillar turning into a chrysalis and getting stronger and transforming into a superior form, with Cocoon of Evolution either acting as a defensive monster on its own, or equipped to Petit Moth to evolve it. Depending on how long you incubate your baby caterpillar, the resulting insect beast you unleash is different. And... it's a cool mechanic, don't get me wrong, but it's just pretty damn impractical, even moreso than Fusion monsters. Still, pretty neat.
If you're a bit impatient and 'hatch' Petit Moth after a single turn, you get Larvae Moth. Petit Moth loses his face, but in turn has gained a whole ton of nasty-looking spikes, but for all the effort of using two cards in the field and holding Larvae Moth in your hand, you get a monster that's barely stronger. Hell, you're actually better off leaving the Petit Moth equipped with a 2000-DEF enhancing Cocoon!
But if your Petit Moth/Cocoon of Evolution combo lasts for 4 turns, you get Great Moth, the expected giant moth/butterfly monster, Pokemon-style, that would be birthed from this evolution sequence. And I really do like how Great Moth isn't just a giant Mothra monster, but its main body is still that of a giant caterpillar. Sure, it's got the far more insectoid legs, and a pair of awesome Kamen-Rider-esque horn-fang deals, and there's the moth wings for sure, but Great Moth looks so much more interestingly mutated than "just a moth monster".Of course, that's because Great Moth isn't actually the final form, and you're still cracking that Cocoon open too early. No, to completely get rid of the Petit Moth's caterpillar-ness, you need to wait two more turns and a couple more expansions before Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth is released... but that's a card for another time.
Another insect-themed card used by Haga, Killer Needle (a.k.a. Killer Bee in Japanese) is... well, giant hornets ready to stab you with a gigantic abdomen needle is still badass and pretty scary looking, but it's also... just kind of a giant hornet. I like it because I really like badass bugs, but at the same time there's also not a whole ton to talk about here.
Insect Soldiers of the Sky is a far more abstract insect beast, sort of a weird cross between a beetle and a locust, but with a cartoonish monster mouth between those mandibles. I do like the mixture of green and brown, it gives the creature a pretty fun B-movie sci-fi look.
Oh oh oh! I now remember what the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh I watched was. It was Bandit Keith fighting Jonouichi, during the whole Duelist Kingdom arc! And Bandit Keith played a Machine tribe deck, and Barrel Dragon here ended up being one of his stronger cards in that fight. And I was really, really impressed by the sheer bizarreness of the Barrel Dragon. Keep in mind, I watched this thing in the original uncensored Japanese version, and... well, you can just see just how different the two Barrel Dragons are. Or, well, the international "Barrel Dragon" and the Japanese "Revolver Dragon".
And I really love the design of this thing! It's two things combined into one package of utter bizarreness. A Godzilla-style dragon made entirely out of metal? With steampunk pistons and whatnot? And then both of its arms and its upper jaw are fucking revolvers? Hell, it even works with the card's effect, which is basically meant to be some sort of Russian's Roulette, where you flip a coin three times, and if two of those are heads, Revolver Dragon murders one of its enemies. Honestly, the most charming detail, I think, is the fact that Revolver Dragon's gun-head actually forms its upper jaw, and it still has a functioning set of chompers despite being a gun-dragon.
That's not to say Barrel Dragon is without its charms. Sure, it definitely looks far less badass and metal than Revolver Dragon, but Barrel Dragon's insanely coloureful Nerf laser cannons definitely has their own set of charm. Sure, it's inferior, but compared to some other instances of censorship, it's actually resulted in a pretty charming card. (The censored anime, on the other hand...)
Holy shit, this is a favourite of mine! The first set didn't have a lot of Zombie/Undead cards, but Pumpking, the King of Ghosts, shows up here! In the anime, Ghost Kotsuzuka (Bonz in the dub) is a Zombie-using player, and his ace card is Pumpking over here. And... and what a pleasant-looking giant pumpkin monster Pumpking is! He's a massive pumpkin with vines, a single fleshy eye, a grinning jack-o-lantern carved mouth, and the silliest little crown on top of his head.
In the anime/manga, Pumpking basically sends his vines to other zombies and empowers them by 10% every single turn. In the TCG, poor Pumpking is severely nerfed, requiring a different card to also be up in the field to trigger its effect, and Pumpking only raising its own stats instead of every single zombie. Eh, he's a giant happy undead pumpkin monster, and that's all that matters!
Even moreso than Winged Dragon, Baby Dragon, Tri-Horned Dragon, Thousand Dragon or the whatever-eyed colour dragons, Blackland Fire Dragon here is just the most basic-looking European dragon ever. It's a green dinosaurian lizard with bat wings, a serpentine neck, horns, and fangs.
Also a pretty basic-looking dragon, but one with far more personality, is Crawling Drgaon. That thicker, almost crocodilian thick neck, the underbite with teeth jutting out, and, of course, the description that this is a weakened dragon whose wings have been ripped off, which is why it's got so much more developed legs. A pair of pretty neat "just a dragons" that I definitely remember from the anime.
Speaking of dragons, Thunder Dragon, who is named exactly that in both English and Japanese versions, is considered a Thunder-type monster instead of a Dragon-type. Even though it's a pretty draconic monster, being this giant worm-like dragon with wings. Thunder Dragon has the ability to basically cycle itself for two additional copies, upon which you fuse them into the Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon... who is a red version of the Two-Mouth Darkruler from the previous expansion. Who is neither a dragon, or a dinosaur like the darkruler, but also a Thunder-type monster.
Apparently Kaiba uses these in the anime, but I completely forgot.
Another card I have! Mask of Darkness is a pretty neat-looking Fiend monster, seemingly just being a tattered wooden (clay?) mask with cracks and some red scars, but it's actually a fiend shaped like a mask! While I don't think Mask of Darkness actually showed up in the anime, there's going to be an archetype that revolves around mask monsters in the future.
Meanwhile, Masked Sorcerer is a Spellcaster that... that I've never quite realized was actually kinda interesting. It's not just perspective, he is just a floating torso that seeps out of that weird golden hole in the fabric of space-time like a djinn. And he's got a metal Destro mask with a monocle for some reason. Pretty neat!
Giltia the Dark Knight (no way to know if D stands for Dark, Demon or Dragon if you didn't watch the anime) is another card belonging to Jonouichi that, like the Flame Swordsman, was a Normal monster in the anime and manga instead of being an impractical Fusion monster. Bizarrely, the fusion requirements for Giltia is a dude in armour and a lady lounging on the throne... and they result in this dude with a cape, a pointy hat and a mace-staff thing. Giltia does get used a fair bit by Jonouichi in the anime, but gets utterly outshined by far cooler-looking magic knight monsters like Flame Swordsman or Gearfried. Sorry, Giltia, you're just... very much not as interesting as the others.
Also, yes, yes, Dark Knight. Batman. Insert your own joke.
Big Eye is a grotesque muscle-man wearing pants, without a head, and instead has a whole ton of eyeballs all over his arms. I do love how the lower of the two eyes on what approximates Big Eye's head ends up looking somewhat like a grinning, happy mouth. Big Eye's a pretty simple Fiend monster with a fun effect of "seeing" the cards on top of your deck. He's another card I own! Always like eyeball monsters, and while Big Eye isn't the coolest looking eyeball monster in Yu-Gi-Oh, I do have a soft spot for him.
Speaking of wacky fiends, Morinphen! Morinphen, as I found out five minutes ago, is a reference to Morinfen, a legendary horror creature from Magic: The Gathering. And while M:TG's Morinfen is a gangly, disfigured gargoyle thing, Yu-Gi-Oh's Morinphen is... he's got a disfigured shark face, a skirt, and completely bizarre-looking wings that look like... lungs? "A strange fiend" is definitely an apt description for this thing.
King of Yamimakai, with Yamimakai meaning "Dark Demon World", is a pretty neat looking Fiend-demon! Sure, I'm not sure where King of Yamimakai ranks next to the Dark World cards, or Dark Ruler of the Abyss, or Zorc Necrophades, or Dark Ruler Ha Des... there's a lot of demon kings in Yu-Gi-Oh, is all I'm saying. King of Yamimakai is used by minor antagonist Panik (the original Japanese calls Panik the very unwieldy Player-Killer-of-Darkness), a character using Fiend monsters. I kind of like the general design of King Yami here, having an eyeless demon face with what looks like chitinous, bug-like armour covering his face, shoulders and arms. It's not the most exciting demon, but it's a neat one!
Castle of Dark Illusions is Panik's ace monster, and in the anime/manga it's far more bizarre, basically allowing "evil" monsters to hide in darkness, and basically made them immune to attacks until someone uses a light spell, and in one of the more hilarious "we haven't figured out the rules of the game" moments in the anime, Yugi uses Catapult Turtle to launch his monsters and destroy Castle of Dark Illusion's "flotation ring", causing it to crash onto the ground. The TCG turns Castle of Dark Illusions into a pretty bland Zombie support card, but regardless of its viability, I do enjoy the fact that an entire floating fortress with a giant kanji for darkness is considered a monster on its own,
I guess we'll just check off a bunch of the cards that appeared in the anime first, like Shadow Ghoul here. 'Ghoul' is one of those sort of monsters that can mean whatever you want as long as it's vaguely related to darkness and corpses, and Yu-Gi-Oh's Shadow Ghoul is a genuinely awesome-looking gangly monster whose face is covered up by red orb-eye things, and those same red orb-eyes also pepper his chest, shoulders and knees. Those gangly arms ending in claws, the unruly set of hair, and the somewhat insect-like and almost Zerg-like set of mouth-proboscis... and I don't think I've ever realized that the Shadow Ghoul doesn't just have two legs, but have like four or five, scuttling around like some sort of twisted crab. Easily one of the cooler-looking monsters, and it's considered a zombie! I've always thought it's a Fiend, but I guess since it empowers itself by monsters in your graveyard, it kinda makes sense.
These are a pair of three Spellcaster monsters used by the dueling brothers Mei and Kyu (Para and Dox in the English dub) in the anime, and they're... they're kinda neat, being all vaguely based on oriental storm gods. And I remembered owning only Kazejin, and being confused as to what the hell this thing is supposed to be. It's a "Spellcaster", but it's some sort of Chinese vase-ornamentation-thing with the character for "wind" carved onto it. Oh, and it also has a mouth, and two robot-like claws, as well as two... glowing yellow balls? I do like how Kazejin's green orb-things ended up giving the impression of a chubby face. To throw in their whole ancient artifact deal, in the anime, when they are summoned, they initially appear sealed in boxes before they are unleashed by their owners.
Suijin's artwork shows far less of the creature's body, and looks far more like a spellcaster than his two brothers, just being a screeching demonic face and a pair of clawed hands seemingly poking out of either a body of water or some blue clothes, clutching a glowing sphere with the Japanese kanji for Sui (water) between his hands. But as we can later see in the Gate Guardian card, or in the anime, Suijin's actually something more similar to an AT-ST with a mouth hanging from underneath it. Also, while Kazejin is a Spellcaster, Suijin is an Aqua monster.
Kazejin and Suijin are both known in the original Japanese, respectively, as "Fumashin: Hyuga" and "Suimashin: Suga", but gets their names severely shortened in international releases, cutting down their actual names and turning their titles into their names. "Kazejin" literally means wind god, and "Suijin" literally means water god.
And the third part of this set, Sanga of the Thunder... doesn't follow the naming convention and call himself Raijin or something, which has always bugged me. Why did Sanga of the Thunder (original name Raimashin: Sanga) the only one out of the three to get a unique name? Regardless, though, Sanga is still pretty neat, working off the same sort of aesthetic as Kazejin as this sort of sentient Chinese ornament with large claws. I also love how there seem to be two 'faces' on Sanga's design, either the character for "thunder" with horns, or those closed-eyes-and-mouth light-brown parts of his lower body. Sanga's neat.
And then, like Voltron or Devastator, all three of them combine into the mighty, level-11 monster Gate Guardian, which is basically Sanga sitting on top of Kazejin sitting on top of Suijin, leading to this grotesque robot with a gigantic perpetually-open mouth for a crotch. It's... it's actually kinda neat even if it's not the most impressive monster in Yu-Gi-Oh, although I am genuinely baffled as to why Gate Guardian isn't a fusion monster. It's far, far more practical to Sanga, Suijin and Kazejin separately, mind you, as they all have their own effects to negate enemy attacks, while Gate Guardian's just a huge beatstick. Still, it's kinda cool in the anime, as ridiculous as Gate Guardian looks.
Lava Battleguard and Swamp Battleguard, known in the Japanese versions as Barbarian #1 and Barbarian #2 respectively, are just a pair of... muscular, horned barbarian ogres that gain more power based on how many of the other type is on the field. They're used by Honda Hiroto (Tristan Taylor in the dub) in the very few times that he's allowed to duel. They're... they're all right, I guess? Not particularly excited by these sort of brutish muscle-men, honestly, although I always am willing to acknowledge that they're a necessary part of any fantasy setting.
Mystic Horseman (Kentauros in the Japanese) is... he's just a centaur, honestly. A pretty boring one, although the art does end up emphasizing the horse's body really well and the way the human waist is joined onto the horse's neck looks particularly nasty. Mystic Horseman is one of Kaiba's monsters in the early stages of the anime, although he favours the Horseman's buddy, Battle Ox, who's a minotaur we'll probably cover later when we do the starter decks. Interestingly, Mystic Horseman, despite being half-human is still considered a "Beast", and not a "Beast-Warrior".
Battle Ox and Mystic Horseman are fused together to form Rabid Horseman, or "Minokentauros" in the original Japanese. And it's actually pretty surprising how many video games and fantasy series feature both centaurs and minotaurs, but I don't think I've really ever seen a centaur with the upper half of a minotaur like Rabid Horseman here. It's not particularly exciting, but it's certainly a fun concept!
Dream Clown (a.k.a. Dream Pierrot) is a pretty normal-looking clown, and he's... he's just a clown dude, really. He's nothing particularly special, but I do own this card, and he's part of a set of clown-themed monsters.
Dream Clown's buddy, Crass Clown... is anything but normal. In the original Japanese, he's called Murder-Circus, and you can see why. Fat clowns aren't scary at all... but when they are pudgy, have gangly limbs attached to a gonky body, and that utterly horrendous face? Sure, censor Revolver Dragon's gun-barrels, but Crass Clown's crass-ass face is going to give me nightmares more than a gun-dragon. Also, it's obviously a Fiend, unlike Dream Clown's clearly more mundane Warrior race. Crass Clown is used by Bonz in the anime, who basically set this card up to die and revive it as a zombie later on, as if you needed this to look any scarier.
Dream Clown and Crass Clown fuse together to form Bickuribox, literally meaning jack-in-the-box... and my god, what a fucked-up jack-in-the-box this thing is! Those massive Mickey Mouse gloves, the grinning duck face with fangs, manic-looking eyes... the original card in the game is, like many others, a Normal, non-fusion monster used by Maximilian Pegasus, and if it's not disturbing enough, it pulls out a fucking scythe out of its mouth.
And while I've been decrying how silly it is to turn non-fusion creatures in the anime and manga into fusion creatures in the TCG, Bickuribox is one that actually works due to really embodying the fused, mighty form of a bunch of clowns.
Ocubeam is... it's a pretty funny-looking monster! It's a weird winged rabbit with tentacles for front legs, and a gigantic, bloodshot eye that takes up its entire face. Also, it has no mouth, and a tail with a barb. Honestly, the more I look at Ocubeam, the more bizarre it becomes, and that is meant as a goddamned compliment. It's shown up in a bunch of filler arcs in the anime where the cast is transported int the virtual world, and... yeah, Ocubeam's pretty damn cool. It's also a freaking fairy, and its Japanese name is Angel Ears. What?
What is a Bugroth? It's one of the few Machine-type monsters in the Metal Raiders set, and it's a... weird-looking thing. It's apparently some sort of vehicle, with two huge jet engines attached to the side of what could be described as a... mechanical pigeon with a cockpit in the head segment? I don't remember seeing this dude appear in the anime, but I do own the Amphibious version of Bugroth from a subsequent expansion. Ground Attacker Bugroth is kinda neat!
Another fun Machine-type in this set is Blast Juggler (a.k.a. Mr. Bomber in Japanese) who is this... this red bomb contraption with the angriest face ever, a timer, and it apparently bounces on a spring while juggling extra bombs with those thin, rickety robot arms. It's a pretty whimsical looking monster, actually. And I've realized that there are a lot more Effect monsters in this set than there are in the first one. Neat-o!
Another pair of Machine monsters. Giga-Tech Wolf is... it's kinda neat, a cyborg wolf with metal wings and scorpion-tendril tails. It's nothing particularly special, I don't think, and we've seen cooler-looking Machine cards, but it's not a horrible-looking monster.
Cannon Soldier is a wee bit more charming to me, though. There's definitely a sense of those old-school Zeon mobile suits from the original Gundam, what with Cannon Soldier being this bipedal, wide-chested robot with massive claw-arms and a non-conventional head. In Cannon Soldier's case, the head's a fucking tank cannon. Like Catapult Turtle, Cannon Soldier can also use your own monsters as fuel to directly attack your opponent's life points, albeit it's always a fixed 500 points. I like Cannon Soldier a lot.
Another one that's not a fusion monster in the anime/manga, Labyrinth Tank is... it's a card that doesn't actually make a whole ton of sense taken out of context. See, in the original anime/manga portion where Labyrinth Tank takes place, the card game ends up playing out like a board game of sorts where our heroes have to move their monsters through a labyrinth, and Labyrinth Tank with its massive amount of drills is able to bypass said maze and attack anywhere. It's otherwise a pretty clunky-looking drill machine, though, and the fact that this is apparently formed from a cannon-headed Z'Gok and a cyborg wolf doesn't make any particular sense, really.
Launcher Spider, known by his full name TM-1 Launcher Spider in Japan, is a pretty badass spider tank! Spider tanks are always a cool fixture in sci-fi, and I'm a big fan of the huge, almost crab-like chunky legs that the Launcher Spider has, as well as the huge missile pods on his back. I remembered Launcher Spider being briefly used by Bandit Keith in the anime. Not much to say here, but i do like it.
Jinzo #7 is not to be confused with the far more prominent card Jinzo. See, "Jinzo" is derived from jinzoningen, a term that literally means "artificial human", and tends to be equivalent to the English words "cyborg" or "android". It's the same term that Dragon Ball Z uses for their androids. And it's basically meant to represent a series of mutated cyborg-people in the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, with Jinzo #7 here being number seven in a series of cyborg experiments... and the whole numbered jinzo-ningens is likely a nod to Dragon Ball Z. The actual art is neat, with that fancy mouthplate and random cyborg accessories, but it's otherwise not very remarkable.
Huh, I guess fungi aren't actually plants, but Mushroom Man #2 is apparently considered a "Warrior"? I mean, I guess. Mushroom Man is a pretty neat mushroom monster, just a veiny, fat toadstool with muscular human arms and two slit-like eyes. Its effect is kind of hilarious, too, with Mushroom Man #2 damaging its owners and constantly switching sides after damaging its owner. I know Yugi uses Mushroom Man #1 in the anime, the red one, but I'm not sure if #2 ever shows up in the anime.
Originally treated as a trap card in the anime/manga, Jirai Gumo (literally 'landmine spider') will attack enemies who set foot at a certain location. It's... it's a pretty grotesque looking spider, with a face that has nothing to do with a spider, and I do like the fact that it seems to have a smaller set of ineffectual claws growing out of its chest.
Leghul, meanwhile, is a bizarre, weak... worm-centipede thing with a hilariously large set of face-pincers and a segmented body made out of spheres. I also really like the bizarrely frowny face it has. Weevil uses this pretty weak creature in the anime, I think.
Niwatori just means "chicken" in Japanese, and this thing is... a huge, fat chicken-beast but with some anime-dinosaur-esque spines running down its back. I... I have no idea why I find this thing so bizarrely hilarious.
Speaking of funny cards, look at THE BISTRO BUTCHER over here. Named "Devil Cook" in the Japanese version, this blue-skinned goblin clearly needed to get the "devil" part censored... but they went with fucking BISTRO BUTCHER. How awesome is that name? Honestly, that makes all the difference. A blue-skinned goblin-esque demon cook with a captain hook hand is... it's kinda ridiculous, but giving it the name of freakin' Bistro Butcher just makes it so, so much more endearing in my mind.
Yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh is just kinda insane sometimes, as evidenced in Musician King, who is... he's just a fucking rockstar. There's no beating about the bush, really. The card can pretend that it's a Spellcaster, but it's clearly just a rockstar with Super Saiyan anime hair. And, for some bizarre reason, Musician King here is a fusion of... Witch of the Black Forest and Lady of Faith. We've seen the Witch above, but the Lady of Faith is basically a generic D&D priestess... and fusing a witch and a priestess ends up with a male rockstar. Okay, then.
This card is used by minor character Johnny Steps, who's a dancer, in the anime, and it's not even a "yeah, this card isn't originally envisioned as a fusion monster" like Labyrinth Tank or Giltia the Dark Knight. Nope, they actually show a four-eyed witch and a praying priestess fuse into a rock star.
Oh, hey, we've got a pair of brain monsters here. And, naturally, they're both fiends, because there really isn't any other category that really fits brain monsters. Tainted Wisdom (Demon's Wisdom in Japan) is just a floating brain with... worms? Fungal stalks? Some manner of parasite growing out of it. Are they even parasites, or are they just part of the brain demon's anatomy?
Ancient Brain (Demonic Sky Elder in the Japanese version) is... he's a dwarf angel with a gigantic brain and a unicorn horn. Ancient Brain doesn't ever appear anywhere outside of the TCG. Not even minor cameos in the anime or video games, and it's apparently a fallen angel. With a massive brain for some reason. Brain monsters are neat, and I find it hilarious that we got two in quick succession.
But that's not all! The two brain monsters fuse together into... Skull Knight. Not a big brain monster, just... just an angry demon dude with a giant skull for a chest-plate and as a shield. Skull Knight isn't particularly bad, but it's just... it's kinda boring, isn't it? Especially considering it's the fusion of two demon brains. It has somehow turned into a skinny demon-knight in armour... and it's not even a demon! Or a Warrior! It's a Spellcaster, for some reason. Jeez.
Electric Lizard is... it's a pretty hilarious-looking thing, isn't it? It's meant to be a lizard (but, of course, fuck the Reptile-type, this thing is a Thunder-type instead), but it's some sort of... chubby Charmander-like thing with stubby arms and legs, huge dead-fish eyes, and huge, huge lips filled with fangs. And two weird antennae. This is one of Bakura's cards for some reason in the anime (the rest of Bakura's decks are pretty nightmarish creatures). It's.... it's wacky, but in a good way.
Muka Muka is a card I own, and it's... what is it? "Mukamuka" is the Japanese onomatopeia for sickness and nausea, but Muka Muka himself is... some sort of... tick or spider? Made out of Rock, as its tribe notes? With a bug-face, and a bunch of volcanic vents on its back? Regardless, it's a pretty damn neat-looking creature, this rock spider with a bunch of volcanic vents.
Yado Karu (actually yadokaryu in the original Japanese, meaning "hermit crab dragon") is a neat-looking monster that's like Yu-Gi-Oh's version of Shellmon, a giant hermit crab with a crocodile-like face, as well as massive crab claws. Pretty neat!
7-Colored Fish, or Rainbow Fish in the original Japanese version, is another card I own. It only has like, five colours at most! Lies, Konami! It's such a bizarre-looking ugly eel-fish, and I've always found this thing to be utterly bizarre. Sure, that ugly mouth is par the course for actual fishes, but it has no fins throughout its sleek body, it's got these ugly-ass "I will cut your family" eyes, and it's got two horns on the side of its mouth for some reason.
I'm going to close the main segment of this page with these two. Hoshiningen (literally "Star Person") and Star Boy. And I do find these two utterly bizarre, out of place, and at the same time, pretty dang hilarious. Hoshiningen (named Superstar in Japan) is a Light-type Fairy monster, and it's got a douchy-looking human expression on a cartoon star. It's also got shoes for some reason, and rainbows float in the background. Clearly, it's a literal star in the sky! Meanwhile, Star Boy is a Water-type Aqua monster with a single, fleshy eye and a wide fanged mouth. It's also got rainbow-coloured tentacles coming out of its back, so despite being similar cartoon stars with faces, Star Boy appears to be some kind of starfish mutant! What a bizarre duo!
Oh, hey, a spell card that actually features some Egyptian mythology! Tribute to the Doomed is apparently one mummy making another mummy. Is it making a tribute to himself? Or has Mr. Mummy captured an unfortunate grave-robber?
Change of Heart is a pretty prominent card in the anime, and it basically allows you to, well, steal a monster for a turn. These sort of 'mind control' effects are, as far as I know, banned in most TCG and OCG rules. I do like the look of the artwork, though, with a maiden being split in half with one devil wing and one angel wing.
I do like that one of the trap cards in the game is just Robbin' Goblin, a goblin that basically continually steals a card (forces your opponent to discard a card) every time you attack. It's a Continuous Trap Card, as shown by the infinity symbol next to 'trap card'
Seven Tools of the Bandit is a Counter Trap Card, and this wacky Swiss Army Knife basically allows you to destroy an enemy trap card, leading to a back and forth of "you activated my trap card!" I own a copy of Seven Tools of the Bandit, and I've always found it hilarious that among the ghouls, magicians, monsters and robots, a Swiss Army Knife can apparently dismantle, say, Mirror Force below.
Mirror Force! When some schmuck attacks, you reflect the attack back and blow up all of your enemies' monsters! Alongside Raigeki, put this in your deck if you really want to burn the friendships with the friends that will tolerate you enough to play card games with you.
A large portion of these early cards never actually made it into the anime, but Armored Lizard does, being used by Jonouichi multiple times. It's pretty damn boring, though at least we kind of get another Reptile-type monster... it's increasingly being one of the more rare types, actually. It's just a shame that Armored Lizard is just a boring lizardman in metal armour, and Jonouichi has a far more visually memorable lizardman monster in Alligator Sword.
Ancient Lizard Warrior is another Reptile-type monster, and it's... it's a lizard-man dressed in... leaves? Green-coloured pineapple husk? Or is that just his normal skin? Whatever the case, he's got big-ass Wolverine claws. It's a concept that probably would've been more badass if the face didn't look so damn goofy.
Armored Zombie here is one of the zombies summoned by Bonz in the anime, but he's... he's pretty bland, just a zombie clad in samurai armour with arrows sticking out of him. I give him points for me actually remembering that he showed up in the anime, but he's still a pretty bleh design.
Battle Steer, known as Gyu-Majin (bull djinn) in Japanese, is... it's basically a version of a minotaur with a slightly more demonic face. He's neat, and Yugi and Jonouichi both used this card once in the early episodes. It's basically eclipsed by the likes of Battle Ox, though.
Leogun is a lion. An angry, black-skinned, green-eyed lion. Jonouichi used him exactly once in the anime, and I had to look it up. Pretty boring, honestly, especially considering how interesting some "just an animal" beasts have been in this series.
Jellyfish is just a jellyfish. The original Japanese version called it "Kurage: Jellyfish" (kurage is the Japanese term for jellyfish), so I'm actually surprised that they didn't reverse the redundant name in translation. Jellyfish was used by Aqua-expert minor character Ryota, otherwise known by the awesome name of Mako Tsunami in the dub.
Rock Ogre Grotto #1 is basically identical in design to Steel Ogre Grotto #1, but, y'know, a rock monster instead of a steel monster. His name is still as nonsensical as his steely counterpart.
Another card that I own, I've always enjoyed how bizarre Destroyer Golem looks. Yeah, it's a humanoid Rock monster, like Rock Ogre Grotto or Giant Soldier of Stone, but Destroyer Golem's right hand is made entirely of organic musculature, and Destroyer Golem himself is pretty decked out in some fancy bling. That honestly is enough to make Destroyer Golem far more memorable than it probably should.
Trent is otherwise known as the trademark-friendly name of the Ents from the Lord of the Rings franchise. It's a neat-looking treefolk with a face carved onto the side of the tree, but we've seen cooler plant monsters from Yu-Gi-Oh.
Meanwhile, while Trent is boring, Rainbow Flower is anything but! It's a plant with a sleazy-looking one-eyed face at the center of the flower, rainbow petals, and a very angry face on the pot with gnashing teeth. Pretty wacky and whimsical looking plant monster for sure!
Oh, hey, I own Blue-Winged Crown! It's... it's a pretty bird for sure, with a long neck and fiery eyebrows, but I've always felt that the Skull Red Bird was far cooler-looking than her as far as level four winged-beast birds go. Blue-Winged Crown is still kinda neat, though!
Apparently, you fuse her with fucking Niwatori, the obese chicken-kaiju, to form Punished Eagle (the far cooler-sounding Hawk of Judgment in Japanese), who is... just an eagle. Man, some of these fusion monsters are really boring, huh?
Mega Thunderball is just a spiky robot ball with a single eye that rolls around, and it's apparently a Thunder-type mosnter that shocks everything around it. Okay? Not particularly interesting, it feels like a minor trap or hindrance in a 2D Zelda game.
Interestingly, Mega Thunderball combines with fucking Ocubeam, i.e. the cyclops angel rabbit chimera creature, to form Kaminari Attack, (kaminari = lightning) shown in the picture as an angry Zeus dropping a bolt of lightning on people. It's... it's just such a bizarre name. So it just summons the thunderbolt created by Zeus-Thor or some shit? The Japanese name, something that translates roughly to "Wrath of the Thunder God", seems to imply something similar.
And does Kaminari Attack have anything to do with The Immortal of Thunder, a fellow Thunder-type card? Probably not, though. The Immortal of Thunder has way lower stats and levels than Kaminari Attack. He's an angry lightning-manipulating wizard with bloodshot eyes and blue skin for some reason. Hell, considering his race is Thunder-type, he might not even be human.
Bladefly is a pretty cool fly-like nondescript insect with the addition of a huge-ass sickle as one of her front legs. Not a pair of sickles, not sickles on all of her legs. Just one of them.
Pale Beast is... what is it? It's vaguely humanoid, with a face with eyes and a hornon either side of his jaw. And I'm not sure if it's just perspective, or if his right arm is really long. Or if it's just bent at an awkward angle. Kind of a neat feature to give an ogre-like monster, but I really wished that they had given me more. "Its skin is kind of pale" really shouldn't be the first thing you mention about this thing.
Let's do another Fusion set! Bottom Dweller has a pretty unflattering name in the localized form, but its original Japanese name was "Shingyo", meaning Godfish. It's just as well that they renamed him, though... the artwork is pretty damn unimpressive, looking like just a generic green eel.
Tongyo, meanwhile, is basically a pun between the English word "tongue" and the Japanese word for fish, "gyo". It's a flat, bug-eyed fish with a long tongue that branches into three and apparently the tongues are also vampiric. Just because. Tongyo's neat!
Tongyo and Bottom Dweller are fused together to form Deepsea Shark, who is... well, it's a pretty purple-and-red shark for sure, with an extra third eye. It's a neat monster, but that's mostly because sharks are cool more than anything else.
Disk Magician is... it's apparently a beyblade that summons a floating robot torso-and-head, as well as two disembodied hands. Kind of a neat concept, I suppose, and one that's different from the literal destructive robots seen in this expansion. Steel Scorpion is another one of the machine-types introduced in this in this expansion and it's... it's kinda boring, isn't it? It's not even that badass of a metal scorpion.
Ew ew ew ew! Ooguchi, known as Largemouth in the Japanese version... is... what the fuck is this? Is it a Loudred fused with a mutant horse, or some shit? What a horrifying creature, with those nasty-ass teeth, those huge lips, those dead, yellow bug-out eyes and the bizarre combination of a long, whip-like tail and a somewhat bovine main body. It's an Aqua monster, which doesn't really tell much.
Prevent Rat looks less like a rat and more like some sort of really, really flat armadillo with exaggerated armour plates, the requisite "gem in the forehead" so many anime monsters have, and sharp claws. S'neat, but not particularly memorable. Meanwhile, Milus Radiant is just an angry mutant dog with oversized hind legs and a horn and another one of those forehead-gems. Eh.
Garnecia Elefantis is an elephant-man! He's a neat elephant-man, even if he has sharp, pointy toes for some reason. Not much to say here. He's neat! Flame Cerebrus (sic) is... well, he's a pruple cerberus with heads seemingly made out of flame. Yu-Gi-Oh will have better-looking cerberuses in the future.
Cyber Saurus is a fusion monster that is a... pretty ugly-looking cyborg dinosaur, with a big-ass gun for his left arm, and a bunch of random plates on his forehead. Oh, and it's got spikes all over his body. MetalGreymon you ain't. Hilariously, though, one of the components for Cyber Saurus, "Two-Headed King Rex", isn't actually part of any easily-obtainable Starter Deck or expansion set, relegated to a tournament-exclusive booster pack. Poor Cyber Saurus!
Mystic Lamp is like Aladdin's lamp or something. We actually have a pretty prominent genie monster, La Jinn, which is in one of those starter decks that I should talk about in the future, but Mystic Lamp has absolutely nothing do to with it. It's also considered a Spellcaster for some reason, instead of... Fiend?
Hyosube, meanwhile, is an Aqua-type monster that's clearly based on a particularly disgusting depiction of a kappa. Hyosube himself draws its name from a different sort of water imp that looks like a small hairy child. Yu-Gi-Oh's Hyosube's a pretty disgusting-looking kappa, though, with that tongue hanging out and those emancipated, bent gangly arms.
And somehow, a magical genie's lamp and a kappa fuse together to form Roaring Ocean Snake. Which... it's a giant red sea serpent. That is not considered a Sea Serpent, but an Aqua-type monster. Yeah, between Aqua, Fish and Sea Serpent, methinks that splitting the types up too much ended up confusing the game makers.
Sometimes, early on in Yu-Gi-Oh, we have "counterpart" cards, which are basically recoloured versions of what's obviously meant to be alternate artwork for a pre-existing card. Dark Elf here is a version of the more prominent Mystical Elf from the first expansion. She never shows up in the anime or manga, and is basically a non-blue-skinned version of the Mystical Elf. She flips around Mystical Elf's stats and is Dark-type instead of Light-type, and she's... she's neat, I guess.
Hunter Spider is a less colourful version of a card we've seen in the first expansion, Kumo-otoko. Sorry, but Kumo-otoko's green stockings just make it far more charming than any Ettercap out there, including Hunter Spider here.
Wait, isn't Little Chimera here basically the same design as Fusionist, sans angel wings? Why the hell isn't this one of Fusionist's fusion requirements, then? Instead, we get this bizarre cat-creature as some sort of creature that buffs Fire-element monsters and debuffs Water-element monsters. Weird!
... sigh, I guess I've ran out of all the wacky beasts and other cool monsters, and I have to go through the humanoids. There are a lot. And there are a lot of boring ones. Guardian of the Labyrinth at least has a pretty cool shield, being this demonic set of gums and teeth surrounded by pink flame. The actual soldier himself isn't particularly exciting, though. It's one of the components to summon Giltia the Dark Knight.
The Unhappy Maiden is apparently adapted from the Little Match Girl story, I think, and she's... she's a Spellcaster, somehow? Eh.
White Magical Hat (a.k.a. White Thief in Japan) is... he's kinda snappily dressed, I suppose, but I can't help that this looks like Detective Kogoro Mouri cosplaying as Kaito Kid. Kudos to whoever got that joke.
Water Omotics is an Aqua monster, apparently some sort of water-bearer that pours a stream of water that turns into a water serpent in the background. She's also notable for being pretty censored -- while most Yu-Gi-Oh censorship tended to use photoshop to edit excessive cleavage or give bodysuits to less-conservative female characters, Water Omotics was straight-up buck naked in her original artwork.
The Little Swordsman of Aile is a tiny baby with as sword riding a lizard. He's a Water-element type for some reason. Ancient Elf shops in the same place that Dark Magician and Giltia do their shopping, and is mostly just notable for clearly having boobs, but is referred to by the flavour text as a 'he'. Either someone didn't look at the card art while writing the flavour text, or Ancient Elf is just pretty progressive.
Magician of Faith and Lady of Faith are... they're spellcasters! And they're ladies! And they're kinda boring! "Faith" is basically a go-to translation shorthand for anything vaguely referring to religion-based ranks, because these are known respectively in Japan as "Saint Magician" and "High Priestess". Also, as noted in the Musician King entry, Lady of Faith would fuse with another girl and become a half-naked rockstar man.
Witch's Apprentice does have a broom, but why does she have a blue Santa hat and huge angel wings? Half of the actual angel-fairies in this franchise don't even have wings!
Protector of the Throne is a lady with a crystal ball floating over her hand, and is noted to be a queen protecting the throne in lieu of her king... but despite the floating crystal ball, she's a Warrior instead of a Spellcaster. Also, she fuses with a goddamn Death Knight to form Giltia. For some reason.
Oh, here's a pair of cards who lost their lore thanks to silly translation mishaps. The artwork for these two cards are clearly meant to parallel each other. Crystals in the background, same sort of dress and headwear, both ladies wielding crystal shards on their knuckles Wolverine-style... so what gives?
Well, Princess of Tsurugi's Japanese name is Tsurugi no Jo'o, translating into "Queen of Swords"... which accidentally gets translated into Princess instead. Meanwhile, Queen's Double, her, y'know, body double, had the jo'o in her name translated into the proper 'queen'. I guess Queen's Double is doing such a good job that she disguises even her regent's name? Whatever the case, the most interesting thing about these two are the mistranslation. Pretty boring monsters.
Hibikime means noisy woman, and apparently she actually weaponizes noise to attack her enemies? That's a fancy scythe she's holding that looks like a musical note. The Hibikime fuses with Queen's Double to form Empress Judge, which is... like a bad Zelda cosplay or something? I dunno. I just have so little to say about any of these "just a human" monsters.
Stim-Pack, or as it's known in the original Japanese, Doping, is bad for you, kids! You get 700 attack points, but you steadily lose 200 attack points in each subsequent turn!
Also, in the midst of mighty spells that manipulate the weather, Germ Infection is also a thing. Those are some very, very angry bacilli and paramecia! I do like the artwork for Germ Infection.
(Oh no, that poor cow)
I am not sure what is going on in the art here, but that doesn't look cheerful at all.
A bunch of the 'literal artwork' ones like Stop Defense or whatever from the first set. It's neat in small doses, but I'm thankful they moved away from this sort of art style in subsequent releases.
"Sword of Deep-Seated"? More like Sword of Grammar-Bad, am I right?
Fake Trap is apparently this fetus-like demon just holding up a paper sign with the words "False" on it. Not even the word "fake", too. That would be too accurate.
I have a copy of Magic Jammer! And that's about the only interesting thing I can say here.
"I am an old man rising my hand! Receive my judgment!"
Not much to say about any of these. They sure are neat Spell (and Trap) cards! I think I own a copy of Soul Release, though. Yeah, I really tend to not have much to say about many of these spell and trap cards, honestly. See you guys in whenever I do another one of these in the future!
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