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We'll start this off in no particular order, as I mix and match cards from both expansions while we talk about this. We'll start off with Serpent Night Dragon (Evil Night Dragon in the Japanese OCG), who is a pretty funky looking serpentine dragon. Serpentine dragons are sort of a dime a dozen, but I really do like just how bizarre this thing looks, with its undulating body, its adorable T-Rex claws that end in some nasty-looking claws, and its almost beak-like face. Also love the two tiny pairs of wings that flap about and lift segments of its body aloft.
Some sources note that apparently the name "Serpent Night Dragon" isn't even translated properly, since the English words "night" and "knight" are written exactly the same in Japanese (naito), and considering how the flavour text notes how this is a dragon born from the soul of an evil knight, well...
You can tell "Buster Blader" was named by a Japanese creative team. It's still kind of a cool name regardless, and it's this warrior with a pretty badass-looking armour. It's a full-body armour ending with a mask that spikes up into two demonic horns, and I do love that he apparently has the same "yawning mouth" collar-hoodie getup that Dark Magician has. Buster Blader was prominently used in one of the battles during the Battle City arc by Yugi, when he fought the... uh... evil mime-dude that Marik was possessing. I tend to not really talk a whole lot about "just a knight" monsters, but I do like Buster Blader a fair bit.
His card effect makes him stronger for each dragon on your enemy's side, either alive or dead, so presumably he's a dragon slayer! Neat!
One of the earliest archetypes that didn't actually fit into the whole element and/or race deal is the Toons, a group of cards that are utterly broken in the anime/manga, created by the in-universe creator of the card game, Pegasus J. Crawford (a.k.a. Maximillion J. Pegasus), and a whole lot of his cards show up, spread out across these two sets. The actual Toon cards in the official real-life TCG is a lot weaker, mind you, with a whole lot more limitations than the anime counterpart, where they're basically invisible and exists on a different plane of existence, forcing you either destroy the Toon World spell card, or to utilize Toon monsters yourself. And because Pegasus is a bit of an ass, he never released the Toon cards for public use, which is... yeah, kind of unfair.
The lynchpin of the Toon cards is the Continuous spell card, Toon World, which, in the anime, summons a giant storybook into the field, transforming everything on Pegasus' side of the field into Toon monsters that basically work on cartoon physics, allowing them to Looney Tunes physics their way away from the explosions and shit.
Of course, the real-life Toon monsters are a whole lot harder to use, being that they are actually monsters that require Toon World to be active to even hit the field, and until then, they are just taking up space in your hand. Here we get to see the corrupted "Toon" versions of two of our protagonists' classic cards, Summoned Skull and Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And it's actually quite ingenious for the writer to use 40's/50's American cartoon style to portray 'corrupted' monsters instead of the usual zombie/vampire/undead/tentacle/shadow versions. It's a shame that the Toon monsters are mostly just done after this set.
Anyway, I've always loved how utterly silly Toon Summoned Skull looks, and that he doesn't even have a lower body, it just extends down into the pages of Toon World like a psychotic jack-in-the-box. The art style isn't exactly "American cartoon" so much as an extremely exaggerated version of what some American cartoons look like, but I still do love those rubbery arms and that entirely manic look Toon Skull has. Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon is more 'chibi' than 'Western cartoon', but it still works to deliver a cartoon critter that probably sounds exactly the same as Donald Duck, from that expression. Really, really love Blue-Eyes Toon's eyes, too.
So in the actual anime, Red Archery Girl is just straight-up transformed into Toon Mermaid when Pegasus activates Toon World, something that the cards doesn't actually show at all. Red Archery Girl (her Japanese name translates to "Mermaid Archer") is... she would've been a far more boring-looking anime mermaid girl if not for the massive clam that she apparently hides in. Also, note how the international artwork censors her Little Mermaid style shellfish bra into a tank top. Jeez, Konami, if Disney thinks it's okay...
Hilariously, though, Toon Mermaid is allowed to keep her shellfish bra unmolested, so I guess American cartoons are immune to censorship? I do love just how blatantly different the eyes are on the two mermaids, even if Toon Mermaid kind of has the big eyes that are more commonly associated with anime. Toon Mermaid's also got one hell of a tan, but best of all, I really love that the giant clam ends up being the most changed, having gigantic clam eyes.
Ryu-Ran, also known as "Dragon Egger" in the original Japanese, is a fun little concept! Being somewhat similar to Digimon's Digitamamon, I really do love how this apparently is a massive level-7 dragon that... still sticks around in his egg shell, refusing to let anything other than the tips of his limbs and wings poke out. It's a pretty neat monster.
And, for whatever reason, Instead of going for Toon Ryu-Ran, we get Manga Ryu-Ran. I suppose the "Toon" tag that replaces the Effect monster bit sort of helps to allay that confusion, but still, I really wished that they had stuck to their guts. Just because you change "Dragon Egger" into "Ryu-Ran" doesn't mean you have to change "toon" to "manga". Hell, a more proper localization would be Anime Ryu-Ran! Whatever the case... Manga Ryu-Ran is my least favourite of the Toon monsters, who just looks way too bizarre for me. That bellybutton seems more Japanese than American cartoon anyway, although I do appreciate that the monster sort of 'hatches' when it assumes its Toon form.
Now we're just going to blaze through all of the Pegasus cards in this set. The Yugi-vs-Pegasus battle holds a special place in my heart, because the whole set of episodes from Bandit Keith to the final Pegasus battle were the first episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh I watched, and the first manga volume of Yu-Gi-Oh I bought (and it ended up read a lot of times) is the issue with the Pegasus battle. And thus I really, really ended up loving Pegasus's bizarre monsters in the fight.
After Yugi manages to counter Pegasus's broken Toon monsters, he ends up showing off his actual actual ace monster, Relinquished, known as "Sacrifice" in the original Japanese version. Presumably, the name's changed so that kids aren't confused with the actual sacrifice mechanics in the game. And the blue border shows that Relinquished is a new type of monster, a Ritual monster -- Ritual monsters can only be summoned by playing the Ritual spell card (Black Illusion Ritual in Relinquished's case) and fulfilling its conditions. Pretty cool fantasy, but it ends up being a wee bit too complex and for the most part, Ritual monsters end up being sort of a niche thing.Relinquished is a pretty badass monster, though. Hell, even visually it just looks utterly bizarre, vaguely resembling an upper torso that tapers off onto a drill-like point. It's got massive, weird reverse bug-wings, a Spawn mask as a face, a tentacle that extends onto the Egyptian eye, and two big-ass claws. Most prominent, though, especially in the anime, is the hole on his stomach that sucks enemy monsters in, manifesting them on Relinquished's wings. Relinquished would then take over the 'trapped' monster's stats, both stealing them and using them as the titular 'sacrifice'.
Pegasus then reveals that Relinquished can become even more stronger, fusing it with the Thousand-Eyes Idol to form Thousand-Eyes Restrict. Or Thousand-Eyes Sacrifice in the Japanese... and while "Relinquished" is pertty cool of a substitute name, "Thousand-Eyes Restrict" just sounds very, very awkward. Let's talk about the Thousand-Eyes Idol quickly. It's basically a shitty monster that has no use other than as the specific fusion monster to summon Thousand-Eyes Sacrifice, and it's... it's reasonably fun for an otherwise unremarkable monster. It's just a giant rock with multiple eyes, and for whatever reason, it's got a cape, arms and legs with fancy stripes sleeves.
Thousand-Eyes Restrict/Sacrifice is basically the original Relinquished/Sacrifice, but with a far meatier flesh texture instead of Relinquished's more metallic or chitinous sheen, making him look far, far more like some sort of hideous monster that wouldn't be far from home as a Tokusatsu enemy. Basically, Thousand-Eyes can absorb as many monsters as it wants to (in the anime, at least, the official card doesn't have this ability), instead of just two, and it's also able to use its eyes to basically "freeze" all enemies in place, causing them to be unable to attack or change battle positions. Of course, the way Yugi wins is... definitely not legal in the actual rules, but I didn't particularly care because it's awesome, and this massive eldritch abomination ended up being taken down by a swarm of Kuribohs. Which is just awesome.
Anyway, I really do like this set of monsters. Well, mostly Relinquished and Thousand-Eyes, but still, as a set, I do like them a lot.
That was a lot of words, so let's talk about some simpler monsters! Metal Fish is another Machine-type monster, and it's... it's a hilariously goofy-looking pudgy robot fish with robot legs growing out of its bottom! It's simple and hilarious. Meanwhile, fellow machine-type monster Mechanical Snail doesn't actually look like a metal snail with a few add-ons. Instead, it's a fleshy snail's shell with no actual snail body, with a massive set of chompers, and a pair of razor-thin metal limbs jutting out of its sides, acting as arms and legs. What an utterly bizarre-looking motherfucker! Pretty fun as a one-of "whaddafuckisthis" concept, actually.
Despite their English names, these two aren't actually related in the original OCG, with Flying Kamakiri #1 being called with the name "Dragonfly", while Flying Kamakiri #2 is called "Flying Mantis". Kamakiri means "mantis" in Japanese, if you're wondering. It is really bizarre, because other than their heads and wings, the two monsters aren't actually that similar... and we've seen straight-up "repainted" monsters have completely different names.
Flying Kamakiri #2, as his Japanese name would tell you, is just a straight-up massive Godzilla-sized praying mantis. Yes, it's standing on its far more developed-looking hind legs, and its face is a wee bit more monstrous, but it still has relatively normal-looking insect anatomy. Meanwhile, Kamakiri #1/Dragonfly, is far more like an insect bug-man mutant monster, with a clearly bipedal body, a set of massive dragonfly eyes, and four pairs of arms that end in massive claws. I really do like how colourful Dragonfly-Kamakiri looks... he really does feel like some sort of a mutated Kamen Rider!
A pair of parasitic monsters! Presumably based on real-life tapeworms, Drill Bug brings the general segmented look of those worms and ends it with a massive trident-hooked face with a drill surrounded by eyes in the middle of that face. I vaguely remember Drill Bug being used by Insector Haga/Weevil Underwood in the anime, but the star card of his second deck is Parasite Paracide, which Drill Bug basically helps you to tutor for.
These two sets also included a bunch of other Ritual monsters, and unlike Relinquished, none of the other Ritual monsters actually have badass effects, making them basically impractical and completely ineffective to play. They're pretty damn hilarious, though, with Hungry Burger over there being one of my all-time favourite cards to point to for the most ridiculous Yu-Gi-Oh card. A sentient, chomping burger is funny enough, with massive pointy teeth embedded into the Pac-Man style buns... but the fact that you actually have to go through a whole magical ritual and sacrifice monsters to summon this massive demonic hamburger... who's considered a Warrior of all things... yeah.
Crab Turtle is a bizarre monster! You can see the crab claws and multiple crab legs on his chest and back, and you can see the turtle shell, but the rest of Crab Turtle -- from his eyeball on a stalk, to his armoured dinosaur legs -- are neither crab nor turtle, and I do mean this as a compliment, Crab Turtle looks like a villain in an Ultraman or Kamen Rider show. Pretty nifty monster! I own Crab Turtle, and I remembered being sort of disappointed that I can't actually use him since I don't have the ritual spell involved.
A pair of... interesting dragons. Twin-Headed Fire Dragon (Big Bang Dragon in the Japanese version) clearly has 'dragon' in his name, and even the flavour text refers to him (them?) as a dragon, but he's actually classified as a Pyro monster. It's a bizarre dragon, too, being two bat wings, two heads and a tail ending with a claw all sprouting out from a tumour-like central body. I don't think I've seen a lot of fantasy dragons that don't have such a bizarre body layout.
Hyozanryu is Diamond Dragon in the Japanese version, and he's another one of those "oh, this monster has an English name in the Japanese, so let's reverse-translate it!" cards. I actually own one of this! He's a pretty reasonably neat-looking dragon, selling the whole "dragon made up of diamond" fantasy really well. Do like that nose-horn, too. It's one of the many minor dragon cards that Kaiba's used over the anime's runtime.
Gearfried the Iron Knight (pronounced Gear-Freed) is another one of Jonouichi/Joey's signature cards, and actually being a level-4 monster with a useful effect, probably one of the few of Jonouichi's cards playable in the actual card game. Silly Flame Swordsman and Giltia! Gearfried's design is... it's neat, I suppose, being a metal knight with very angular lines. He's not super interesting to me, though, and the only reason he's here is because of his relatively prominent role in the anime. Despite being an effect monster, it apparently has lore, as detailed in the anime (and in subsequent Gearfried cards) -- Gearfried is apparently such a powerful warrior who can devastate nations by holding a weapon that he sealed himself in a suit of armour to limit his power, which is why he has a relatively high ATK/DEF point for a level-4 monster, but will destroy equip spell cards.
Maha Vailo, based on the Buddist deity Mahavairocana, is... she's sure a spellcaster with a fancy getup! Kaiba and Anzu both used her once. She's all right, I guess, with a pretty fancy set of jewelry and metal bat-wing-guillotine things. Not that much to say.
Slot Machine is perhaps one of my favourite cards just by how utterly bizarre it looks. It's a walking slot machine with a single robotic eye, a big fuck-off cannon for one arm, two reverse-jointed stompy legs, and another arm that pulls its own slot lever. It's a combination of utterly ridiculous and pretty badass, and looks like the Las Vegas cousin of the Transformer Shockwave. Slot Machine is one of the first cards I obtained from a booster pack, and was easily the most interesting out of the cards. And since I watched that Bandit Keith episode pretty early on... yeah, Slot Machine's one of my all-time favourite monsters.
The concept of this card, again, is a lot more wacky in the anime/manga, with 7 Completed basically "rigging" Slot Machine to get all 7's on his slots and get an extra bonus. The actual 7 Completed card, despite being pretty flavourful for Slot Machine, is a far more boring "buff a machine monster" card in the official card game.
Probably one of the more prominent cards that Jonouichi uses after the first arc of the anime is Jinzo, or, as he's known in the original Japanese: Jinzoningen - Psycho Shocker. As I've noted before, "jinzoningen" is a term that means artificial human in Japanese, usually translated to either cyborg or android, and the Jinzo card is just one of many Jinzo's, properly named Psycho Shocker. Jinzo himself looks pretty horrifyingly bizarre, though, looking like some sort of hideous mutant man in a metal BDSM outfit, like an anime cyborg version of Hellraiser. Look at those unnaturally long arms and neck! He certainly looks like some sort of bizarre, modified "artificial" human for sure! In the anime, Jinzo was originally used by minor antagonist Esper Roba, before losing the card to Jonouichi, one of our protagonists, who actually used this card a whole lot. Jinzo's effect is simple, but it basically negates and deactivates every single trap in the field. He's a pretty cool, if slightly fucked-up-looking, monster!Jigen Bakudan, a.k.a. "Time Bomber" in the original Japanese, is a Pyro monster that... honestly looks like some sort of bizarre Egyptian style golem. It's a fun, decorated sphere with what appears to be like an octopus-style mouth at the bottom, two crab-like arm-leg things, a whole lot of jewels, and a countdown. Its effect in the anime/manga is basically counting down for two turns before blowing up, killing everything on board and inflicting damage equal to the destroyed monsters' attacks to their owners, something that Pegasus used in combination with the 0-Attack Relinquished. I have this card and the actual card's effect is a whole lot less impressive, blowing up your board alone and inflicting the damage to the enemy. Still, the artwork and the general colourful look of Jigen Bakudan is pretty neat! Like this little dude a fair bit.
Ever since I opened Three-Headed Geedo on a Pharaoh's Servant booster pack, I had always wondered what a "Geedo" is. Up until today, I still don't know what it is, and its original Japanese name also refers to it as a three necked "Giido". It's a Fiend, and it was briefly used by a minor Rare Hunter villain in the original anime/manga, but I'm still not sure what it is beyond being an abstract demon. I do like how it looks, though, this humanoid figure with this green-and-black... sponge? Coral? Some sort of material that wraps around its massive chest, its pelvis and its limbs. It's got three mouthless masks for faces, sausage fingers, and clawed toes. The Geedo is particularly memorable to me as a kid, and while nostalgia is 99% of the reason why I love this card, the Three-Headed Geedo is actually one of the first monsters that pops to mind whenever someone says "Yu-Gi-Oh". Neat how the mind makes weird associations like that, huh?
Goblin Attack Force is... a bunch of serious-looking goblins, with a respectable 2300 Attack for a level-4 monster... but every time it finishes attacking, it is forcibly changed into its defense mode, which has a whopping 0 points. A neat effect showing what I assume to be the suicidal or reckless goblins, but this ends up spawning a whole series of cards homaging this card in the future, sort of like Pot of Greed. It's neat! Jonouichi uses this card a couple of times in anime-exclusive battles, I think.
Another pair I own! Kotodama is a Japanese concept about how mystical powers dwell in words and names, a common theme in many Japanese material, and it's interesting that apparently the manifestation of Kotodama is a humanoid figure covered from head to toe in golden glyphs. It's also considered a Fairy-type monster, so it's an angel. Absolutely like just how horrifyingly tortured the expression on this thing is, and its effect destroys all copies of a monster with the same name, which is a very interesting for a vengeful Word of Power Angel to do.
Kiseitai was originally named Seishin Kiseitai, meaning Mind Paraiste. This isn't something that was apparent to me when I first opened up this thing, and I was utterly baffled by this... long, bizarre, twisted sausage with a single cyclopean eye, transparent glowing Tron insect wings, and its tail seems to be flipping me off. Kiseitai is also a Fiend, so I just assumed that it's a bizarre worm demon and moved on, although the artwork was really memorable to me. Fast forward a couple of years when I finally watched the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, and I was surprised to see that in the anime battle between Jonouichi and Insector Haga's Parasite deck, Kiseitai was summoned at one point, parasiting Jonouichi's monster and continually healing its original master. Pretty neat parasitic worm, honestly, and one that's a demon of all things!
Bubomic Vermin was originally called "Death Hamster" in the OCG, and I cannot decide which name I like better. The fact that it's just a generic-looking hamster but is considered this dreaded death-spreading bubomic beast is pretty hilarious.
Also pretty fun is the level 2 fiend Bite Shoes, who is just a sentient, demonic high-heeled shoe with a single eye and a massive, toothy maw ready to presumably bite off whoever is dumb enough to put their feet into this clearly sentient thing.
The Legendary Fisherman is the primary signature card of Water-themed minor character Ryoka Kajiki (a.k.a. the far more badass sounding Mako Tsunami in the dub) and he's... a fucking boring-looking tattooed anime man riding a shark. It's pretty neat, I suppose, but considering the amount of far more interesting monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh, Legendary Fisherman's kind of boring. Also, his artwork's bizarrely censored, changing the original spear into a... what is that thing? A prod? One of the most bizarre censored artworks, honestly, because we never had any problems with people holding weapons. And it's not like spears are as commonplace as revolvers or anything.
How do you make a Fire-elemental aquatic creature? Well, just set one on fire. Fire Kraken is a Fire-element monster, being a giant octopus with a flaming 'do that spits out fire, but it's still considered an Aqua-type monster. Neat!
Dokuroyaiba is a bit of a weird fiend monster, initially looking like a weird floating skull with a snake coiling around it, and blades sticking out from either end... and then you read the description, and realize that Dokuroyaiba is actually a fucking "boomerang with brains", which apparently will pursue its target to the ends of the earth. So not only do you have the misfortune to be pursed by a demon... you're pursued by a demon that takes the form of a fucking boomerang with brains. Also, "Dokuro yaiba" apparently is the Japanese word for "Skull Blade", whereas his original Japanese name is "Shinigami Boomerang". Yep! Death God Boomerang, which is just adds fifteen levels of extra charm to this goofy-ass thing.
Meanwhile, Ceremonial Bell is a card I own and for the life of me I don't understand why a bell is considered a Spellcaster. It's a neat, defensive monster that forces both players to reveal their hands, but I still don't understand why this isn't a Spell or Trap card instead.
Presumably set in the same sort of "creatures inhabiting pottery" mentality of the Pot of Greed, both Morphing Jar #2 and Cyber Jar are actually some of the most abusable cards in the game, and as of the time of writing, are still banned from official tournaments, which is pretty damn impressive considering the power creep the game's gotten in the past couple of decades. Morphing Jar #2 ("Chaos Pod" in Japanese) is a pretty fun creature design, just a huge eyeball and a shit-eating grin in the darkness within the jar. It basically forces both players to shuffle everything into their decks and draw until they can re-summon monsters equal to what they have... something that might actually end up milling the other party, I believe.
Cyber Jar ("Cyber Pod" in Japanese), meanwhile, is apparently a mechanized version of Morphing Jar, with its eyeball replaced with a glass dome, and its grin now made up of metal. It looks like a space station, honestly... but it's still considered a "Rock" monster like Morphing Jar despite clearly being mechanical. It has a pretty similar effect to its non-cyber cousin. While I don't actually fully understand the intricacies of the metagame, I do know that I like the ridiculousness of these two cards.
These two are cards that I remember very well due to them appearing in a volume of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga that I owned -- and it was those two volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh, one containing the aforementioned Pegasus battle, and another one containing the debut of the Egyptian God Cards, that I read back and forth, earmarking them heavily. And in that volume, at one point, anti-hero Kaiba Seto ends up programming a robot to fight him so he can test out his newly-acquired God Card, Obelisk. Kaiba does things like that. And in that battle, Kaiba summons these two monsters, Invitation to a Dark Sleep and Steel Ogre Grotto #2. Actually cracking open Steel Ogre Grotto #2 from a booster pack, I was pretty elated to see a card I own actually show up in the manga.
I'm not sure why neither of these monsters showed up in the anime, with their places being taken up by other cards. But I will always remember these two for their role in the manga. Invitation to a Dark Sleep is actually called something that translates into "Dark Sleep Inviting Lucifer", and is understandable censored in international releases. He looks pretty neat as far as an evil sorcerer goes, with a funky pointy robe, a third eye, those fancy "glowing eyes in the dark" look under that hoodie. And true to its name, Lucifer's effect is to basically force a monster to "sleep" and not attack as long as he's still on the field.Steel Ogre Grotto #2 continues a long trend in the translated cards of calling random golems with the moniker "Ogre Grotto" even though they don't actually have any relation in the originla Japanese version. Steel Ogre Grotto's original Japanese name is something that translates to "Iron-Fisted Golem". It's a neat-looking robot, all things considered, and while it does have Yu-Gi-Oh's tendency to draw robot monsters with massive Popeye-esque lower arms, it really wouldn't feel out of place as a Gundam enemy, like one of those Zaku or Gouf suits. Especially in the manga artwork! Anyway, a pair of cards that, while not particularly super-relevant, are cards that I definitely like
Ah, Gradius. Here we go, then, with the first of the many, many homages to old Konami arcade games that's going to be making their way into the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. Gradius the card is a homage to the Gradius franchise, a series of space shooter games, where you control the spaceship Vic Viper and fight aliens or something. Vic Viper was actually the card's original Japanese name, but I guess they wanted to make the homage a lot more easy to spot? It's... it's a homage, I guess, but the anime actually ended up showing Ryoji (Duke in the dub) using a deck that heavily features Gradius, making it pretty hilarious when you throw in this futuristic jet-spaceship into a battle with sorcerers and dragons. I've never been the biggest fan of the Konami crossover cards in Yu-Gi-Oh, but neither do I mind them too much.
Speaking of more modern objects... Overdrive is just a military jeep with a goddamn gatling gun slapped onto its side. Known as Gatling Buggy in the original Japanese version, Overdrive is straight-up just a jeep. Which is just utterly bizarre, but ends up sort of bringing some things into hilarious perspective. Like, apparently, space starship Gradius up there is nowhere as powerful as a jeep with a machine gun. And the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's attack power is just shy of being twice as powerful as a gatling gun buggy. And apparently it's easier to get through the defenses of the Summoned Skull than a jeep. Also, and it took me a while to realize this, they didn't censor the goddamn gatling gun! What, Barrel Dragon gets neutered and transformed into NERFgun dragon, but Overdrive is okay?
Oni Tank T-34, meanwhile, is a wholly different sort of machine monster, being a mutated, futuristic tank with an oni's face in front of it, and some Ghost in the Shell-esque tank treads layout, albeit with two red roller wheels in front instead of having four of them functioning like animal legs. It's apparently based on an actual tank, the Soviet T-34 medium tank. Not sure if the 'oni' comparison is referncing something, though. I kinda like it, actually, and it just looks utterly daft in a good way.
The concept of a Vampire Baby is pretty horrifying, and a lot of modern horror games tend to use ghosts or undead versions of babies and fetuses for extra horror value. It's definitely something that strikes a primal chord of wrongness in us, but Yu-Gi-Oh's Vampire Baby is just so... it's so adorable! You just really want to pinch its little cheeks. It manages to still look adorable while also having a fun set of glowing eyes and angry fangs that don't actually look like it's trying to be cute. Interestingly, Vampire Baby is a card that was originally released internationally with a censored name (Red Moon Baby) before being fixed back to its original name. I guess they realized "vampire" isn't as offensive as, oh, I dunno, "demon" or "undead"? And because, of course, they decided to translate "undead" as "zombie", it does have the side effect of things like vampires and other intelligent undead being classified as zombies.
Mad Sword Beast is a pretty fun looking monster, and a card I own! It relaly looks like a rhinoceros, doesn't it? From the look of its skin and the lack of any real reptilian features, Mad Sword Beast just looks like a rhinoceros with a big fuck-off blade for a horn, as well as armadillo-esque carapace on its back. But for whatever reason, it's classified as a 'dinosaur!'
I am not sure what "Octoberser" means, but it's a fun little aquatic monster, with the flavour text helping to point out that Octoberser's not your average fishman. He's got the head of a fish -- like a straight-up full fish with fins and tail that's joined onto his humanoid body by the neck -- as well as the lower body of an octopus. Truly a bizarre fish-person! Very nearly stuffed him with the others post-break, but then I realized just how much I like the bizarre body layout.
Skull Mariner is a neat-looking ghost pirate ship, with a neat looking skull and ribcage decal on the front end of the ship. And while it is odd that this isn't counted as a fiend, I guess it's just a pretty fancy ship as opposed to a haunted ship? It is Water-element, after all. Its Japanese name is pretty badass, "Kaizoku-sen Skull Blood". Or Pirate Ship Skull Blood.
Mystic Tomato is a card I remembered being gifted by a friend, and I loved this thing! Straight-up called Killer Tomato in Japan, which may or may not be a reference to the intentionally bad movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (insert theme song reference here), it's just a tomato with a cartoonishly hilarious devil-face with its tongue hanging out. Obviously, Mystic Tomato here is a Plant monster and... and, shit, it's probably the reason why Hungry Burger is a monster, huh?
Also, very interestingly, Mystic Tomato received entirely new artwork for the international release, the only card to get that treatment. Even the other sexy/religiously-offensive cards merely got their artworks photoshopped, but when he got translated from "Killer Tomato" to "Mystic Tomato", this dude lost that utterly badass and psychotic-looking Jack-o-lantern face, which... I won't like, looks pretty dang badass, but the international Mystic Tomato has its own share of sheer bizarre creepiness with that tongue and human-like eye-nose combo. Honestly, this is a pair of artworks where I equally love both, and I am equally baffled and bemused that out of the thousands of cards in this franchise, it's the fucking Tomato that gets this treatment.
An expansion called "Spell Ruler" (or Magic Ruler, as it's originally called), as you would imagine, has a large amount of spell cards in it. I tend to not have a whole ton to say about spell cards and trap cards in general, but there are a couple that I do have a fair bit to talk about. Like Mystical Space Typhoon! One of my all-time favourite Yu-Gi-Oh cards. It's a card with a simple, powerful effect. It's a card I own. It's a card used a fair bit in the anime. It's flavourful.
And it's got a fucking bad ass name. It's not just a typhoon. It's not just a magical typhoon. It's a Mystical SPACE Typhoon. A magical weather phenomenon that's also extraterrestrial. The original Japanese name for this card is just the English word Cyclone, and while most other weather-themed spell cards are content to just adapt it verbatim or use a Japanese name for it. Not this one. MYSTICAL SPACE TYPHOON! That's half of the fun of having this card in your deck, really. Just the opportunity to ham it up and shout "I ACTIVATE MYSTICAL SPACE TYPHOON!" is worth it.
Oh, hey, it's the Upstart Goblin! Another card I own that I remember a lot due to its very, very memorable card art. I'm not 100% sure what is happening there. Is the titular upstart goblin being a douchebag and stealing money from the poor, emancipated man? Is the upstart goblin instead tossing gold coins at the poor man... for some reason? Mockery, perhaps? Judging by the name and expression, Upstart Goblin doesn't look like a dude that's going to give money away out of altruism -- hell, that face actually looks like the face on the Pot of Greed. The effect is also interesting, too. You sort of "bribe" your opponent with 1000 life points in order to draw a card, and as anyone who plays trading card games would know, drawing cards is pretty important!
It's a fun card with a fun card art, but Upstart Goblin here is one of those cards that keep recurring as sort of a story as we go on in Yu-Gi-Oh's many expansions.
Dimensionhole (sic), named Worm Hole in the Japanese version, has a pretty badass card art, huh? Those telescoping cracks in the sky, causing segments of the sky to seemingly bend and help to line the inner part of the dimension hole's inner side, is such an amazing visual, leading to some white nothingness at the end of the long dimensional hole. It's basically "Banish a monster from your side of the field for a turn", but back when banishing is nowhere as common in the Yu-Gi-Oh terminology. Back in the day, you need to rip a hole in the fabric of reality itself to banish anything. Nowadays, even a jersey can banish monsters.
I was always a bit freaked out by the artwork of Premature Burial, I must say, and I was always amused that this card is actually an equip spell card. So you equip the concept of a monster being prematurely buried onto a monster? S'weird.
IT'S MORPHING TIME! Or, well, Megamorph. Known as "Kyodaika" or Giant-ize in Japanese, Megamorph doesn't look particularly intuitive, just a weird spinning rune-covered metal disc of sorts. This card is very memorable, though, for being the very first spell card used in the manga -- even before the rebranding from Yu-Gi-Oh into Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters/Duelists.
Magical Hats (Magical Silk Hats in the Japanese version) is a very prominent trap card used by Yugi in the anime/manga, where it's treated as a spell card that basically summons four hats and the monster hides inside one of those hats. It's actually a nice, flavourful mixture of two sorts of magicians -- the actual modern-day trick magicians, as well as the spellcasting Dark Magician. And... and reading through that block of text, it's actually a neat way to simulate the "four illusory hats appear, guess where my monster is hiding!" effect from the anime.
They really have some ridiculously funny artwork in these earlier sets, huh? One of the unquestionable gems is House of Adhesive Tape, a trap card that presumably is meant to evoke traps for cockroaches or rats, and I have seen cockroach traps that do look like little toy houses. And while it does seem like there's a small bug monster that comes around to investigate the House of Adhesive Tape, the fact that the house has an angry set of eyes on the front side, with the door simulating a giant, gaping maw... as well as a second face on that chimney... it's pretty hilarious, and the fact that the house's walls and roof tiles seem to be made out of not-even-dried glue adds to the hilarity of this thing.
Yu-Gi-Oh's cards run gamut with alternating between sci-fi and fantasy, but they tend to keep the sci-fi flavour to be a bit more... fantasy-punk? Steampunk? The robots and machine monsters, especially early on, tend to have a quality that makes them look more like golems and mechanical monsters in a fantasy setting, Gradius notwithstanding. But DNA Surgery is just straight-up a bunch of purple-skinned goblin-people wearing surgical equipment ready to do some DNA surgery, alternating every single monster on the field to transform into a certain type. It's definitely interesting, and if I'm remembering my Yu-Gi-Oh cards right (and I might be wrong) DNA Surgery is another one that has an ongoing story told through future cards.
Another card I own, and one that I'm... I'm still baffled about, more than a couple of decades. Eatgaboon is known by the very simple and more straightforward name of "Nezumi Tori", or mouse trap, in the Japanese version, but that doesn't really explain a whole ton. What sort of mouse trap has a massive... fleshy, veiny maw full of writhing tentacle-tongues of various sizes? Is the Eatgaboon a monster itself? What does "Eatgaboon" even mean? A pretty bizarre trap, honestly.
Lightforce Sword is one of the Yu-Gi-Oh cards to actually feature a Yu-Gi-Oh card on its card art, symbolizing a sword stabbing through a card and 'sealing' a randomly selected card in your opponent's hand for four turns. It's a neat concept, and definitely a fun visualization -- I'm not sure how I tend to find these 'meta' artworks in Yu-Gi-Oh. They're okay, I guess. Yugi uses this card a fair bit during the Battle City arc, I think. I had one of these, I'm sure.
Graverobber is a card that I always thought was a cool effect monster until I saw the actual card in question and it's actually a trap card. I always love the grinning, eyeless gremlin with those massive elf booties on the artwork of Graverobber. It looks so whimsical and at odds at what grave-robbing should otherwise be. Graverobber dude just really enjoys his job! (Also, in an attempt to balance these cards, Graverobber's another one whose effects differ pretty greatly from the anime/manga counterpart. )
Call of the Haunted is a pretty neat card in the actual card. A continuous trap card that summons a dead monster back to life from your graveyard, but its life is tied to the activation of this trap card -- if the trap is destroyed, so is the monster. It's pretty boring, if flavourful... but the original anime/manga version of this card was insanely complex, apparently straight-up resurrecting every single monster in the graveyard, but altering their appearance and nature and turning them into zombies, bringing back, say, "Crass Clown" as "Clown Zombie" and the like. It's another example of the author's creativity just going around without any real regard of how the card would work in a printed card game.
The Japanese version of the card is actually called "Living Dead no Yobigoe", or Call of the Living Dead. Also note that the international version censors all of the cross-shaped gravestones.
This set of cards... really didn't give me much to talk about. They are part of a labyrinth card battle in the anime/manga, basically a combination of D&D dungeon mechanics and Yu-Gi-Oh, something that would be nigh-impossible to replicate in the card game. So to compensate, Labyrinth Wall ends up being a Rock monster, which is pretty boring.
In the anime, the villainous Paradox Brothers fused Shadow Ghoul (who we reviewed earlier) with the Labyrinth itself, creating Wall Shadow, a monster that can freely move around the entire labyrinth and attack wherever it pleases. Again, without the actual "move your monsters on a map" mechanics, this ended up being unfeasible, so the card-making team compensated by having a spell called Magical Labyrinth be equipped to Labyrinth Wall, and then you sacrifice them to summon the pretty powerful Wall Shadow. It's barely a shadow (heh) of how much more interesting its original anime/manga concept was, though.
A pair of fun-looking robots! Spikebot (Spike Head in the OCG) is just a giant humanoid thing with two spiky wrecking balls for arms, and he's got spikes all over his body. Two on his head, a ring around his ribcage... and one running down his crotch. Regardless, though, still a pretty cool, if somewhat simple, concept for a machine monster. Guardian of the Throne Room, presumably guarding a throne room somewhere, looks a whole lot like a copyright friendly version of a Zaku Tank, with more prominent humanoid arms and an eyeless head. It's still pretty neat-looking as a chunky robot, though.
Here at Blackjackrants, we love bugs. And this set of expansions gives us two utterly wacky ones. Girochin Kuwagata, is... well, it's got a hilariously dumb name. "Girochin" is, of course, the Japanese romanization of the English word "guillotine", whereas "kuwagata" is Japanese for stag beetle. I'm not sure if they just wanted to go for a super-Japanese-sounding name, or what, but I find that name to be bizarrely endearing. Girochin Kuwagata is a beetle-man standing on two legs, and using his stag beetle horns to slice... what is that? A stack of coins? Antique laserdiscs? A tightly-wound spring? Also, judging by the background, Girochin Kuwagata seems to actually be pretty small, not much bigger than a real stag beetle. A neat bug monster!
Bombardment Beetle, identified more accurately by its Japanese name to be a "Bomb Stink Bug", is presumably based on the real-life stink bug, although that body plan looks more like a cockroach with a green triangular flat head slapped on just to make it more exotic. And instead of the seemingly natural abilities of the Girochin Kuwagata, Bombardment Beetle relies more on a strap of dynamite on a ticking bomb strapped onto its back. S'neat!
Four is an unlucky number in oriental culture, and I love that the 4-Starred Ladybug of Doom, upon being flip-summoned, just causes the simultaneous destruction of all level four monsters on your opponent's field. It's probably extremely specific and not particularly useful, but I do love that this effect exists. It's a cute, weird ladybug that just looks extra sinister thanks to the colouring effect on the four stars. A fun, cute concept!
The Fiend Megacyber is... it's a dude in some mechanical-themed armour, and from its name, I would've sworn that this is actually a robot. I guess he's some sort of knight with futuristic armour, I guess? I do like that fun, almost Roman centurion-esque curve on Megacyber's head, and that bizarre chin-horn. It's used by Esper Roba in the anime, and in the original Japanese version he's known as "Magic Gigacyber". So he's... a magical, mechanical knight? Also, I find it funny that the localization team ended up downgrading Gigacyber into Megacyber for no real reason at all.
A pair of microscopic creatures, turned into monsters! Ameba, based on amoebas, is an Aqua monster that's just a blob with bizarre features on the center blob that damages your opponent if you 'gift' the Ameba to them. Giant Germ (or Giant Virus in the Japanese version) is just a big-ass bacteria monster (it has a nucleus and cilia and everything) that apparently dwarfs the nearby mountain, and upon death, it will damage your opponent while also summoning two extra Giant Germs, which is a neat way to show bacterial mitosis or something.
Another pair that I almost put in the main article, Minar (Ibi in the OCG) is... it's an Insect-type monster, and has an enemy-damaging effect, but I had a hard time figuring out what it is. It's got a weird robot-moth face, a short, red body, and two crossed arms ending with pretty badass-looking purple scythes? It's a pretty neat-looking monster, even if I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to be beyond "insect monster that will fuck you up".
Not to be confused with the JoJo character, this Weather Report has the hilarious effect of destroying "Swords of Revealing Light", and only that specific spell card. By making it rain. It took me a while to realize that Weather Report is an Aqua-type monster that's meant to represent a stereotypical Japanese snowman with little arms and legs, trying his best to use an umbrella and a Teru Teru Bozu doll (which I've spoken about too many times to count when talking about Pokemon) to presumably bring good weather. It's weird and wacky. I like it.
We'll start off with a pretty bizarre beast, Tyhone #2! It's the same sort of monster as a creature we've talked about before, Tyhone, albeit drawn from a different angle. But where I could've brushed it off as a simple repainted monster, it's curiously considered a Dragon, whereas the original Tyhone is a mere Winged Beast. So apparently all you need to be considered a dragon is exchanging cannonballs for fireballs? In the Japanese OCG, Tyhone #2 is straight-up just called Red Dragon, in English no less.
Ancient One of the Deep Forest is another repaint monster, this time of Dark Gray... and ironically, Ancient One is far, far more gray than Dark Gray! Not much to say here. It's still neat.
Another "looks like an older monster" creature, High Tide Gyojin is basically a different looking version of Root Water from one of the earlier sets. I do find it fun that "High Tide Gyojin" swaps the English and Japanese words from his original Japanese name, "Michisio no Merman".
Invader of the Throne is yet another counterpart card, this time being a recoloured version of, hilariously enough, Protector of the Throne. Like her similar-looking counterpart, I have nothing to say about her.
Dark Zebra is a card briefly used by Kaiba, and it's mostly memorable that a character that tends to associate himself with badass dragons, more dragons, warriors and the odd Egyptian god and demon-clown ends up having a goddamn zebra with a unicorn's horn in his deck. It's a pretty creepy-looking zebra, too, with bizarrely spindly legs.
Hiro's Shadow Scout is a pretty fun-looking, if bizarre, monster. I have one of him, and I've always found him tobe both charming and weird, being this massive, muscled blue man with no head, and a single eye and what appears to be a closed, grinning mouth on his head-chest. And he's got horns, and, bizarrely, a tuft of green hair. Who is this "Hiro"? Why does he have a shadow scout? The original Japanese name is basically just a generic "Devil's Scout", so I'm not sure who Hiro is, and why this cyclops is associated with him.
These are just... well, a bunch of birds that are drawn somewhat funny. Peacock's straight-up just a peacock! Yes, that head is disproportionately small in contrast to the rest of the peacock's body, but it's just a peacock. Queen Bird is a card I remember owning, and I do kinda like just how... feral that pose she has, with the bent neck and massive beak. It's certainly natural for a bird to do something like that, but it does look a bit unsettling.
I also find it hilarious that these two "just a birds" requires tributes to summon, whereas some dragons and angels can be summoned without them. Also, both of these birds easily outclass an entire pirate ship, apparently.
Island Turtle is a pretty neat trope -- giant tortoises/turtles carrying an entire castle or island on their back has always been a fun trope in multiple works of fiction, and while the Yu-Gi-Oh's Island Turtle isn't anything particularly special, it's one of the better-looking artwork in these earlier sets. Part of it is actually having a background instead of just a nebulous void.
UFO Turtle??? What the literal shit! It's such a gloriously bizarre concept to combine with a turtle, just slapping a silly UFO to replace the turtle's shell. A bit silly, but it's neat. Not much to really say, but I do kind of like that this is a card .
The Giant Turtle Who Feeds On Flames has a ridiculous name, and is a lot less turtle-like compared to Island Turtle and UFO Turtle, possessing a head that looks more like a ghoulish humanoid demon with fangs. Despite this, though, the card art doesn't do a particularly good job at telling us that this is a fire-eating turtle. Rename the card into "Ghoul Turtle" or "Man-Faced Turtle" or "Fierce Turtle", and it's going to have the same impact.
A pair of fun ones, Sonic Bird would have been pretty banal if not for the fact that it's an eagle with fucking cartoon jet boosters attached to his back. He's also got pilot goggles, and he just looks so ready to fly into battle and fuck some shit up. "Ah, I love the smell of raigeki in the morning!"
Liquid Beast is an honestly fun iteration of what could've been a generic slime monster. The brown colour is gross enough, but instead of just having a single eyeball or a mouth or something, this Aqua monter has five spherical eyeballs clustered at the end of a dong-like appendage. It looks hideous, which is precisely what the artwork's trying to communicate. is an honestly fun iteration of what could've been a generic slime monster. The brown colour is gross enough, but instead of just having a single eyeball or a mouth or something, this Aqua monter has five spherical eyeballs clustered at the end of a dong-like appendage. It looks hideous, which is precisely what the artwork's trying to communicate.
Performance of Sword is the only Ritual monster in these two sets I don't find particularly interesting. Known by the even more underwhelming name of "Dancing Soldier" in the OCG, she's just... a lady with a steel bikini and blades attached to her wrist-guards. Honestly, compared to a spinning mouth demon, a crab-turtle-cyclops and a sentient hamburger demon, Performance of Sword is just pretty dang underwhelming.
Wingweaver is a Light-element Fairy-Angel monster that's... that's pretty unremarkable, honestly, but I remember Wingweaver for the sole reason that I owned her card as a kid. So she ends up being far, far more memorable than all of the other just-a-majestic-angel-creature monsters out there.
Souls of the Forgotten is kind of a neat, abstract-looking fiend that's just a bunch of screaming, formless faces of the damned. Not much to say here, although I remember Yami Bakura using this at one point.
I own the card for Whiptail Crow, and I was always confused why this weird chicken-birdman is classified as a "Fiend" and not either a Winged Beast or a Beast-Warrior. Turns out that Whiptail Crow's original name is Whiptail Gargoyle, but because consistency is a bit too much to ask from the translation team, instead of calling this "Ryu-Kishin" like the other gargoyles, it instead became a crow. It's a neat-looking demonic birdman, and I always liked that plucked-chicken-esque set of wings.
I'm pretty sure I have a card of Deepsea Warrior, or one of my friends do. I do like the look of this merman/mermaid/Atlantanean warrior man, with lots of cool spikes forming this elaborate collar, a pretty neat-looking trident and a kick-ass mask that ends up giving him a neat, faceless look. I'm pretty sure the Deepsea Warrior of all cards ends up being one of the signature cards of one of the Big Five, a group of filler villains.
I love the Penguin Knight! Sure, it looks more like a waddling cartoon duck with penguin proportions than an actual penguin, but I absolutely adore that expression on his face, and the fact that it has such an adorable little sword. He's ready to fight, even with his pitiful attack and defense!
Electric Snake is basically what you expect from its name. It's an angry cobra with a ball of electrical energy badly photoshopped near the end of its tail. It's not even the tip of the snake's tail, it's just awkwardly shoved in a weird space before the tail ends. What?
Cyber Falcon is a neat metal robot falcon, which is kind of a cool, if somewhat obvious, concept. Not a particularly big fan, though, and I'm not sure why. I guess it's the art?
Another Fiend, and Beast of Talwar (a.k.a. Talwar Demon) is... a pretty generic demon-man? I mean, he's a pretty neat demon-man, with metallic bat-wings that grow out of his shoulder, and apparently he's named after the Talwar, a type of Indian sword. Like Summoned Skull, though, this monster ended up having to get a reprint that makes sure that it's treated as an "Archfiend" monster -- again, something that happens due to the translation team not translating "Demon" consistently.
Sword Hunter would actually be a pretty boring "it's just another warrior" if not for that absolutely ridiculous sword plastered on the front part of his helmet. That's just so hilariously charming, and then you realize the man's design is just plastered all over with swords. It's a good sort of silly, and it's even reflected in the card's effect -- any time Sword Hunter kills an enemy, it can basically 'pillage' said enemy and use him as equipment!
Hayabusa Knight (hayabusa means falcon in Japanese) is actually kinda cool, and I really always like bird-men whose heads are straight-up lifted from actual birds instead of cartoonizing them a bit. And while kind of an obvious design, Hayabusa Knight still does look pretty cool with that falcon head and bird-claw limbs. The thing is, though, I'm not sure why it's a Warrior instead of a Beast-Warrior or a Winged Beast, and why it is an Earth-element instead of Wind-element. Oh, early Yu-Gi-Oh and their lack of consistency!
Far more obvious of a Warrior-type is the sci-fi special operative agent man Science Soldier, who really looks like he should be an extra in a Men In Black style TV show. I love that baggy undershirt, and that bizarrely charming little radar gun he has. It's like he's in a Kamen Rider or Super Sentai where the weapons are clearly just toys. He's neat.
One of the more egregious misnaming mishaps is the changing of the OCG card called "Birdman" into Harpie's Brother. I guess the translators thought that they were being clever, making a bit of a tie-in to the Harpie series of cards that are prominently featured in the anime. Turns out, though, that giving a card an archetype it is not supposed to have is a no-no, and in subsequent reprints, Harpie's Brother ends up being renamed into Sky Scout. It's... it's otherwise kind of an okay-looking winged anime-man.
Spear Cretin is kind of a neat-looking little imp that looks like an evil version of Dobby, with cute tiny bat wings and a spear. not much to really say. He's called Dark Familiar in the Japanese OCG. Pretty neat-looking. Flash Assailant, though, is the exact opposite, just being a dude with a dagger and an eyepatch. He is a Fiend for some reason, though. Pretty boring.
Holy shit, what is Twin Long Rods #2? We never actually had the #1 version of this card released in the international TCG, but jeez, what is this thing? It's a Water-element Aqua monster, apparently. It's like a bowling pin with the most grotesque human mouth you could find slapped onto it, two dead-looking fish eyes, and two tendrils that come from its... buttocks? The Japanese name for this thing is Twin-Tail, which confirms with no room for argument just what the titular "long rods" are. Kind of a nice, simple, bizarre monster that looks like a child came up with. I don't mind it.
Psychic Kappa is a neat looking kappa, but he's also essentially just a 'repaint' of Hyosube from an earlier expansion.
I'm not 100% sure what Griggle is named after, but it's a bizarre, little plant monster that's like the Pokemon Oddish if it's created by a different design team. Griggle's got boots, a chuu-ing face, and a set of weed hair that ends up falling over his central core like hair. And it keeps blowing those hair off of his face. Not a plant monster I'm a big fan of, but I appreciate that it exists.
Oh man, that is a disgusting looking Giant Rat, with that skull it's holding really showing the scale of this rat. It's not just a big rat you slay at level 1 in an RPG, it's a straight-up rabid rat man that's tearing people's skulls right off! Pretty neat looking monster, actually, and its artwork has far, far more personality than most of the other beasts in this set.
I do appreciate that while Karate Man is just a boring kung fu man, he at least has a ridiculous afro and is arranged in a pretty funny pose. I think he might actually be based on Jim Kelly's character in Enter the Dragon, only like five times more jacked?
Stone Ogre Grotto is another one that follows the X Ogre Grotto naming fashion which... which I'm genuinely not sure what it's all about, since it's not even poorly-translated Japanese. Stone Ogre Grotto's Japanese name is Stone Giant, straight-up in English words, and has no connection to the other Ogre Grotto cards. It's a neat looking rock-man, I suppose, and I do like its weird, formless head with a glowing core.
The All-Seeing White Tiger has a pretty badass name for a pretty weak monster, huh? It's a neat-looking white tiger, and I kind of have a special place because I cracked it open from a booster pack, but it's just kind of just a tiger. Its name is a bit of a misnomer, because the literal translation of its Japanese name would be One-Eyed White Tiger.
Nimble Momonga is just a particularly rabid flying squirrel, and I always love the fact that trading card games include these sort of wacky, harmless animals as monsters. Also absolutely love the utterly rabid expression on this flying rodent.
Mother Grizzly here is... the card itself isn't super interesting, being just an angry bear. But she's apparently a Beast-Warrior, so she's apparently a werebear? And she's a Water-element monster that, for whatever reason, summons another Water-element creature if she dies. Not sure why a bear is Water-element at all, but eh.
More obvious of a Beast-Warrior monster is Boar Soldier, who is... he's basically a pig-man orc dude. Not much to say here, I think the Boar Soldier actually has a couple of minor appearances in the anime, but I'm not 100% sure.
Despite their names, Darkfire Soldier #1 and Darkfire Soldier #2 has absolutely nothing to do with each other in the original Japanese version, with Darkfire Soldier #1 being called "Burning Soldier", whereas #2 is called Hono no Kengo, a name that translates roughly to Flame Swordsmaster. It's bizarre that the translation team decided that these two cards, of all things, are supposed to be counterparts to each other. They're... they're pretty boring, just dudes on fire with swords. We'll definitely see far more interesting Pyro monsters down the line. #2 has a cooler-looking art, I feel.
Flame Champion (Flame Killer in the OCG) is another Pyro monster that's just a warrior with a weapon on fire. And unlike Darkfire Soldier #2, the flavour text even makes it clear that Flame Champion doesn't even manipulate flames on her own, she just has a burning shield. If she showed up in a newer Yu-Gi-Oh set, she would definitely be classified as a "Warrior" instead.
Likewise, Mr. Volcano looks more like a generic fire spellcaster, although that's a dapper suit he's got there. I would've called that bizarre hair into question, but honestly? The actual Yu-Gi-Oh anime depicting the children playing these card games have far more ridiculous hairstyles than the actual monsters themselves.
Wait, so "Angel" as a tribe is something that the translation team shies away from, but "Shining Angel", as the monster's name, depicting a straight-up angel with wings, is no problem? I really don't understand censorship sometimes.
Dark Witch is... she's just another pretty generic angel lady, actually named "Valkyrie" in the original Japanese version. She clearly doesn't look dark, or like a witch, and I'm not sure why they chose Dark Witch of all things to translate her name into.
You know, from his name, I really would've thought that "Banisher of the Light" is a monster that banishes the Light itself. But he's a priest-loking Fairy with the Light element, so he's apparently a Banisher that works for the Light. It's interesting that this is a Fairy/Angel, too, and not a Spellcaster.
Senju of the Thousand Hands, of course, refers to the depictions of some Buddhist and Hindu deities with a thousand hands. The original name for this card is Senju God, with "senju" literally meaning thousand hands. It's sorta neat, I guess, but I'm not a particularly big fan of cards that are just trying to emulate a religious figure without any sort of creativity. Also... Senpo Mokuton: Shinsuusenju!
Sometimes, when playing video games, you learn words that you wouldn't have learned otherwise. But Giant Trunade is not one of these. After a couple of minutes googling to make sure I didn't make a fool out of myself, "Trunade" isn't a word in English, or Japanese, or in any other language. In fact, the only references I can find to Trunade is in reference to the Yu-Gi-Oh card.
Curiously, the card's original name in the OCG is "Hurricane", as in, the English word hurricane. For whatever reason, they decided to translate it not as "Hurricane", or as a Japanese word for hurricane... but ended up bastardizing the Japanese reading of the English word "Tornado" (torunedo)... which, if you re-translate torunedo into English with no knowledge of English vocabulary, torunedo would feasible end up becoming "trunade". Silly translation team! Anyway, I do like just how... utterly bizarre and demonic that face at the center of the trunedo looks.
So with an expansion titled "Spell Ruler", there's a lot of spell and trap cards included! The problem is... I don't have anything to say about most of them. So I'm just going to include their images for completion's sake, and have a commentary when I have anything worthwile to say.
And yeah, some of the green and purple colours are notably different. Also note the "Magic Card" found in some old printings of these earlier sets... I'm just taking these from the Yu-Gi-Oh Wiki, and different printing sets and scanning teams end up with slightly different hues.
I actually own Confiscation! Other than that... I like Delinquent Duo's ridiculously cartoonish look. There are actually a bunch of other spell cards featuring soldiers with the same sort of armour as the Confiscation dude, so it's kinda neat.
Oh no, that poor dinosaur in Cold Wave! Also, for a card called "Insect Imitation", those certainly don't look like bug eggs.
I've always really wondered why Nobleman of Crossout and Nobleman of Extermination are Spell cards instead of monsters. Until now, I don't think there's an answer beyond "durr inconsistency".
A bunch of continuous spell cards. Insect Barrier actually has a memorable usage in the show where the Bug-using villain Haga basically did a trick where he turned Jonouichi's entire deck into insect-type monsters, and then activated this to block out insect attacks despite running an insect-themed deck himself. A card that blocks only a certain archetype of cards is actually pretty useless IRL since it is maybe useful in a single matchup out of dozens, something that the show actually lampshades.
I have Ground Collapse as a card, and I was always baffled why the card art has nothing to do with grounds collapsing. Also, Burning Land really feels like it should be a Field spell card, but it's instead a continuous one, and... I sorta get it. The land's burning for some time, I suppose.
Pharaoh's Servant actually introduces a fair amount of new Field spell cards. I'm pretty sure Mako Tsunami uses Umiiruka in the anime. It's called "Water World" in Japanese, I think.
A bunch more Field spell cards. Not sure why "Luminous Spark" is a field spell card, but MYSTIC PLASMA ZONE is only slightly less cool than the awesome name that is Mystical Space Typhoon.
Quick-play spells! I get why Rush Recklessly (which I own!) is a quick-play spell. The tailor, though? Or "the reliable guardian"? Yeah.
Equip spell cards! I was always confused why Snatch Steal is considered an Equip spell card. Owned that thing as a kid! Fairy Meteor Crush is also a card I own, and I'm not sure why it isn't a card that symbolizes an offensive spell, but apparently you equip a falling meteor to one of your monsters. Kay then.
A bunch more equip spell cards. Note that "Axe of Despair" is one of those cards that ended up having an errata due to it tying in with the "Demon" archetype that got censored. Axe of Despair was, of course, originally called "Demon's Axe" before the censorship. (I have an Axe of Despair!)
And here are the Remaining Ritual cards. Absolutely love how the hamburger's ritual spell is called Hamburger Recipe and it's just a muscular Porky the Pig really getting into cooking.
Bunch of Trap cards. Nothing interesting to say here, really.
I have Time Seal! I remember how it basically made your opponent not draw a card next turn. Shadow of Eyes is a card used by Mai Kujaku in the anime, I think.
Gamble is a fun card that basically gets you to flip a coin and call it, getting to draw cards or losing your draw phase depending on how you guess. S'neat. I own Shift, and I was always tickled by how goofily cartoonish the random knight and the frog-ogre-thing looks.
I own all four of these cards! There's not much to say, individually, but I remember their arts very well so they hold a special place in my heart. Ceasefire is perhaps one of the more interesting ones, featuring two kings signing a peace treaty, basically forcing everyone to stand down to defense mode, and also "punishing" players who use a lot of effect monsters with penalties, like asking someone to pay concessions for using particularly nasty weapons.
More Trap cards! Always love the artwork on Gust, with people and animals flying in the background.
METAL DETECTOR! I'm not sure why I shrugged off there being steampunk robots and whatnot in a card game supposedly set in a fantasy setting, but I find Metal Detector so damn hilarious. One of my friends had Magic Drain as a kid, and I always felt that the artwork featuring a dessicated soldier with a ghostly demon-man behind him draining his soul and life is one of the creepier artworks in Yu-Gi-Oh.
Continuous Trap cards, now! I own Gravity Well! Also, Type Zero Magic Crusher actually looks kind of bizarrely neat! Gift of the Mystical Elf is just Mystical Elf giving you extra health, and I find it ridiculous how the pose is near-identical, just with eyes and arms open and holding a glowing orb.
Imperial Order features an old king that will sort of be kind of a recurring character in various trap cards in the future. Also, for some reason, Minor Goblin Official is considered a Continuous Trap card. Okay then?
The Eye of Truth features the Eye of Wdjat, a common visual theme in the actual Yu-Gi-Oh anime regarding the Millennium Items, the plot devices of the show. Mirror Wall is a card that I'm also sure someone used in the early stages of the anime.
Forced Requisition is basically just Confiscate, huh? Theme-wise? So's Appropriate. SO many soldiers stealing money from the civilians!
Hoo! That's a lot of cards. It was definitely fun doing this, though!
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