While doing this one, I did a lot of mix and match, so all of the cards from both expansions are well and truly mixed up.
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First up is Dark Ruler Ha Des, which is... kind of your archetpyical demon overlord, one with green skin, a wide grin, a second face on his weird collar-thing, and a skull-breastplate. Oh, and he's got an evil-looking beard, too. In one of the more bizarre censorships in Yu-Gi-Oh, apparently they decided that the entirety of Ha Des's design from the fact that he looks like fucking Satan... the only real problematic thing are those devil goat-horns. Which they shrunk down into weird blue spheres. Oh, and Ha Des's wine glass got turned into mineral water. That tormented face on his collar? The skull breastplate? Nope, those are all right, but god forbid children should ever look at horns and wine.
Ha Des' whole name is also a pun that is lost in translation. In addition to the obvious allusion to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, the way the name is parsed in Japanese: "Ha Desu", with a deliberate space between Ha and Desu. It is meant to highlight the desu part, which is how the Japanese pronounce the English word "death". Also, Ha Des is also featured in a whole lot of random spell and trap cards over the years, and shows up a couple of times in this set's cards as well. Remember Ha Des, because we'll certainly be meting him a lot.
Freed the Matchless General is a lot more boring than Ha Des. He's kind of a generic wise-looking knight man, and I really don't have a whole ton to actually say about him... but Freed's going to show up a lot in random spell and trap cards, and seems to be the general for the generic army of human knights that recur throughout various Yu-Gi-Oh cards. He's just here because, like Ha Des, he's a recurring character in these cards.
And we go from Ha Des into what is apparently one of the more game-breaking cards in this card game, Yata-Garasu. Based on the mythological three-legged crow of the same name in Japanese mythology, Yu-Gi-Oh's version of the Yatagarasu is instead a one-legged crow, a Fiend, and the first "Spirit" type monster we're covering here. We'll talk more about Spirits later on. Yatagarasu is a pretty simple looking creature, a crow with paltry attack... but the fact that it's able to cause your opponent to skip their draw phase, and it also bounces back to your hand immediately after it's summoned, making it nigh-impossible to kill the Yata-Garasu if you don't already have the answer to it in your hand. This card is probably one of the cards that have apparently spent the longest time in the OCG and TCG's ban-list. And it's a dumb ol' crow!
Arsenal Bug, meanwhile, is a completely boring card, from a TCG-playing standpoint, and no real decks would really want to run this thing. But look at this utterly batshit-crazy looking bug monster! Its face is this weird sickle-like structure with bug mouthparts and demonic eyes. It's got skeletal arms holding a sword and a spiky, painted shield. It's got skeletal bug legs, and then I have no fucking idea what that massive pelvis-like structure that juts out from its main body is, but it certainly does look cool. Really makes it a bit of a shame that such a cool, weird monster is relegated into what's essentially a pack filler, while the honestly boring ghost crow is one of the best cards in the game.
Legacy of Darkness featured a whole ton of Fiend-type monsters, which, of course, tends to be a lot more interesting than most other monsters. The Winged Minion is a pretty interesting little imp devil, with a mouth that splays open sideways and a creepy child-like set of proportions that is extra-disturbing on anything undead or demonic. Winged Minion's Japanese name is actually "Ha Des's Familiar", which actually adds a whole lot more significance to it than just being a generic minion of some nondescript entity.
Ryu-Kishin Clown (Gargoyle Clown in Japanese) is... it's utterly bizarre. It's meant to show the Ryu-Kishin dressed in the outfit of a fat jester, kind of like the Crass Clown... but it's not a fusion monster, and doesn't actually have anything to do with either Ryu-Kishin or the Crass Clown. So it's just... it's just a crazy demon-man gargoyle dressing up as a clown for no god-damn reason. I won't lie, it does make Ryu-Kishin like fifty times creepier when he dresses up like an evil fat clown, but still... why?
We've got a fair amount of Fiends, and while I'm not showcasing all of them before the break, Skull Knight #2 is one that's pretty hilarious. See, the original Skull Knight in the TCG was actually "Skull Bishop" in the Japanese version, which they changed into Knight for no real reason. So when the Japanese source material actually had a card called "Skull Knight", they had to slap the #2 moniker onto it. It's a pretty neat skeleton man in armour. I think it's the same sort of armour like the one worn by Freed?
Twin-Headed Wolf (Twin-Headed Cerberus in Japanese) isn't the most novel concept. It's just an angry demon dog with two heads, but I really do like the artwork here. The colour changing from purple to green halfway down the neck, plus the weird blue spiritual aura around it, plus the generally weird pose and the random cow-tails... it's a pretty weird demon dog for sure.
Another bizarre fiend is the Jowls of Dark Demise, mostly because "jowls" is a hilarious word. It's actual Japanese name is just straight-up the English letters X.E.N.O., and its artwork is... a giant, goopy purple mouth with a tongue, and two cat-like eyes peering out of the darkness within the maw. What the shit? What is going on here? There isn't any sort of lore going on here, and it's up to video game adaptations to make sense of the Jowls of Dark Demise. One game interpreted the purple head part as decaying, disembodied floating dragon head, and presumably Mr. XENO-Jowls is the fiend controlling the head from within. Another game had the dragon head have bizarre bug legs, scythes and googly-eyes grow out of it. Pretty hilariously bizarre monster, and one that's definitely improved by how adaptations try to portray this one.
Woodland Sprite is here mostly because I own her card. She's a pretty neat little plant creature, this adorable little fairy-like creature with a leaf for a face, and the markings there are just... well, I'm not sure what it is, but I do appreciate that it's not quite a recognizable human face. I love the oversized baby booties and the Mickey Mouse gloves, as well as those branches and leaf-fairy-wings. Its jsut such a neat-looking peaceful creature! I love her.
Legacy of Darkness also had a whole lot of dragons, one of them being the mighty Tyrant Dragon. I also own this card, which is why I decided to spotlight it here even though it's honestly... a pretty boring, archetypal Western-style dragon. There are a couple of Western-style dragons in Legacy of Darkness, but Tyrant Dragon is the coolest looking one. And also the tyrant-iest.
Spear Dragon is a cute, bizarre looking dragon, and, again, as with any fantasy franchise that features a whole lot of dragon sub-types, is an excuse for the design team to go wild. It's more like a weird bat-gargoyle thing, honestly, with those little nub-feet, but, of course, it's got that massive exaggerated beak that really does look really mean. It's a neat, weird design, although you got to be sorry for the Spear Dragon... other dragons can summon flame and shadow and whirlwinds, and this dude has to stab its prey with its nose-mouth.
Twin-Headed Behemoth (Dol-Dora in Japanese) is an utterly bizarre looking dragon, huh? A two-headed dragon is cool but kinda boring. But Twin-Headed Behemoth's design? Look at this thing! It looks more like a humanoid body with dragon heads for arms, and that random spike in place of a head, thanks to how the Twin-Headed Behemoth's body is laid out. Just look at where the 'necks' connect to the main dragon body, they even have musculature that resemble deltoid muscles! And even the lower body has got some fantasy armour-skirt thing going on! I'm not sure what this monster is supposed to be, but man, what a bizarrely weird way to make a two-headed dragon monster. Pretty neat dragon boy.
Yamata Dragon is, of course, an obvious reference to the Yamata-no-Orochi, the eight-headed giant serpent of Japanese lore. Yamata Dragon's basically the same eight-headed serpent... but it's got this pretty creepy texture of... what I think is a weird combination of rotting flesh and metallic parts. Is Yamata Dragon meant to be a cyborg? Oh, and Yamata Dragon is another one of those "Spirit" monsters that's a running theme in Legacy of Darkness, which is a series of monsters with the common theme of being able to return to the player's hand at the end of the turn. Unlike future archetypes and sub-type cards, Spirit monsters are just a bunch of cards that share an ability without any real interplay with each other. Oh, and they are also based on figures from Japanese mythology, like the Yamata-no-Orochi and the Yatagarasu. This franchise is going to feature archetypes very majorly in the future, but it's interesting to see how honestly lukewarm its early attempts are.
Let's go through a couple more of the Spirit cards. Next up is the Hino Kagutsuchi, based on the Shinto god of fire of the same name (and have appeared in every second shonen jump anime as an attack name) isn't the most interesting fire-god out there if not for the fact that he's posing like a Pillar Man from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. AWAKEN, MY MASTERS!
The Inaba White Rabbit is meanwhile based on the legend of the Hare of Inaba... but instead of just being a rabbit, the Inaba White Rabbit is depicted as a ghostly rabbit creature seemingly doing the whole "pound rice cake with a mortar and pestle" bit associated with a different Japanese mythological rabbit, the Moon Rabbit. Inaba White Rabbit is also seemingly pounding his rice cake dough with a fucking rocket-powered pestle, which is just such a bizarre contrast to the otherwise pretty straightforward adaptations of Japanese myths.
Remember Warrior Dai Grepher. He looks like an extra character in like Mortal Kombat or something, just a generic muscle-man with one of those weird head-socks that 90's characters like Gambit tends to wear, but even moreso than Ha Des and Freed, he's going to show up in a lot of cards in the future. He's just a generic normal monster in this, though, just a mysterious warrior that can manipulate dragons.
Said manipulated dragon, in this case, is Spirit Ryu. Which is less of a dragon, it seems, and more like a weird snake with bat-wings. I guess that counts as a wyvern or something? The art's pretty, even if I'm not quite sure about the anatomy of the Spirit Ryu.
Apparently, manipulating and combining himself with the Spirit Ryu ends up causing Warrior Dai Grepher to become the Ryu Senshi (Dragon Warrior in Japanese), which is just a muscle-man with... what's honestly a pretty weird armour, I must say. What is that weird glass goggle-mask? Why does he have weird elf-ear attachments? Is that supposed to be a fish's tail from his head? Those bat-wing shoulderpads are neat, even if they kind of look impractical as all hell.
We'll be covering another fusion pair with Cave Dragon! He actually looks like my old pet tortoise. Like, I always have a soft sport for these sort of wingless, cave-dwelling dragon variants, and I do like how this Cave Dragon's artwork makes it look more like a particularly huge reptile or dinosaur, but still adds enough features like the horns and the spikes replacing wings to make it look kinda draconic, y'know?
Lesser Fiend (a.k.a. Lesser Demon), meanwhile, is another one of the demons and fiends in the Legacy of Darkness, but I've placed him here because he's got a connection with Cave Dragon in the form of a fusion. He's kind of boring, a muscleman with a rat head and four hands. I guess that's why he's lesser! Also, thanks to the inconsistent translation, Lesser Demon and his fused form Fiend Skull Dragon joins Summoned Skull in cards that originally had the word "Demon" in their Japanese name, and is meant to interact with other "Demon" cards, but ended up having to have the "this card is always treated as an Archfiend card" slapped on its text because "Demon" got translated as "Skull" in some cards, and as "Archfiend" in some others. Oh, silly translation teams.
And when you combine the two, you get Fiend Skull Dragon (Death Demon Dragon in the Japanese version), which is... interesting. You can see where the fused form draws from Cave Dragon and Lesser Fiend -- it's got four hands like the Lesser Fiend, and it's got the Cave Dragon's green-scale-on-top colouration, but the appearance isn't really shared with either one of the two. It's a fusion that isn't just "let's smoosh two monsters together", but it's one that draws from both its component creatures. Pretty neat, honestly, even if the result is kind of a boring four-armed dragon, I can appreciate how they tried to tie Fiend Skull Dragon's design to its component parts.
I'm not sure what a Newdoria is, but he looks like a weird combination of a World of Warcraft Forsaken character, a child-friendly Hellraiser character, and a bunch of random spikes thrown in for some reason. I'm pretty sure this is one of Marik's monsters. Not sure why this is a fiend and not a zombie, though -- kinda looks like an obvious Frankenstein's Monster style zombie to me.
Inpachi is another card that, like Ha Des, is going to kind of reoccur throughout the franchise. His original name in Japanese is "Dai-Mokujin Inpachi", or Large Wooden Man #18. "Inpachi" is its number, and, as you could probably guess from both its flavour text and its name, this is #18 in a series of wooden golems. Despite it being identified as a Machine-type monster, though, Inpachi is apparently a tree that was cut down, turned into a golem, and possessed by a wicked spirit. Okay then! I always love these bizarre wooden-men ever since I saw Mokujin in the Tekken series. Regular old Inpachi isn't super-duper interesting, but we'll see a bit of a storyline of him moving onwards.
A duo of randoms that I just kinda like. Giant Axe Mummy is just a big, round-fat-mummy man with a big axe. That bit of exposed rotting flesh is gross, but I dunno. I just really like how silly the Giant Axe Mummy looks, y'know? Des Lacooda (Rakuda is Japanese for camel, but they transliterate it bizarrely) is a zombie mummy camel, and it wouldn't be as horrifying if that camel's face isn't like, vaguely humanoid.
At this point we've moved from the dragons, demons and spirit-themed Legacy of Darknses into Pharaonic Guardian, which embraces Yu-Gi-Oh's manga and anime's Egyptian theme and features a metric ton of mummies, gravekeepers and Egyptian-themed monsters.
My favourite among the Egyptian themed monsters are these two. Guardian Sphinx isn't super duper exciting -- it's basically the Egyptian Sphinx in Giza, but in all its glory, but it does have a pretty neat card art, and it is pretty flavourful to the whole theme of the guardians of an ancient tomb. While the function of the real-life Sphinx and the specific purpose it's meant to serve is debated, this one is clearly there to protect the entombed pharaohs.
Pyramid Turtle, meanwhile, is a fucking giant turtle with a pyramid for a shell. And it's got that Egyptian headdress and that Egyptian beard-thing attached to its chin! That's hilarious! Best of all, though, is the fact that for some reason, the Pyramid Turtle is a zombie, meaning that it's meant to be a giant undead tortoise with Pharaoh regalia, carrying around a giant pyramid around. This is awesome. Pyramid Turtle is absolutely insane, and it is awesome. Yet this creature has never actually shown up in any anime episode, whereas generic swordsmen like the Gravekeepers have gotten episodes dedicated to them. Boo, I say. Boo!
We have like a half-dozen "Gravekeeper" monsters in Pharaonic Guardian, but honestly, none of them are actually all that interesting visually. They just kind of follow the same theme of looking like, well, Egyptian warriors that are guarding a tomb. They're a neat archetype, I suppose, and they basically all work together and cause effects that help to re-summon gravekeepers from the graveyard as long as the field spell Necrovalley is up. Gravekeeper's Chief is apparently the big boss of the gravekeepers. He looks kinda generic.
Gravekeeper's Cannonholder is probably my favourite out of the other gravekeepers, for the simple reason that he's holding a big-ass steampunk bazooka. Other gravekeepers have, like, swords and stuff, but the Cannonholder knows what's up. He knows what's useful! That card text effect means that the Cannonholder has to sacrifice one of his allies to actually deal damage with the cannon, so I guess it's either tragic misfiring, or the Cannonholder just shoves his allies into the cannon and launches them at the enemy.
You got to have villains to have any sort of conflict, and Don Zaloog and his Dark Scorpion Burglars are the graverobbers trying to break into the pyramid guarded by the Gravekeeper clan. We won't see the rest of the crew until the Dark Crisis expansion, but members of the five shown in Dark Scorpion burglars do show up in the various spell and trap cards of Pharaonic Guardian, really not having a good time against the Gravekeepers and their mummies. Design-wise... m'eh? They're kind of the most generic batch of random anime thugs ever.
Apparently they also show up as actual characters in the GX anime, but I haven't watched that series yet. So.
The 8-Claws Scorpion is a creature that should kind of be kind of a boring creature. It's a regular giant scorpion, but instead of having legs, it's got claws in place of all of its legs. Which... okay, yeah, sure, why the fuck not, y'know? He's probably going to have a lot of trouble walking, but he's going to be able to pinch four times as much Also, he's got evil Tron-line eyes and a stinger that shoots electricity for some reason. I dunno. This one is kinda dumb, but also kinda cool at the same time.
Meanwhile, Souleater is just a "living wonder of mystery". It's a fish with no real special abilities other than looking fucking weird. It's like this bizarre eel, but instead of a regular fish face, it's front half flattens off into what could charitably be described as a loaf of bread with two eyes arranged vertically, and two upside-down snail-eyestalks. Why is it called the Souleater? WHY IS IT A FISH? And what is that bizarre purple demonic claw holding up what appears to be a... fish-globe? What are your mysteries, Souleater?EDIT: After posting this, someone linked me to Souleater's video game appearance... which you can see in that image there. Where's the fish, you ask? Well, it's swimming on top of the globe of that giant Phyrexian metal spider-murder-machine, and apparently it sucks souls into a second aquarium where Casper-like ghosts are floating around. What the fuck, why is this thing so cool? It's a fish that pilots a gigantic crab-like robot with eyeballs and a built-in Ghostbusters containment unit. And yet it's a generic normal monster with no effects.
What the fuck is a Dark Jeroid, and why the fuck does it look so disturbing? A centaur-like body, blue skin, multiple hands as spider-like legs, no head, giant claws jutting out of the shoulder blades, a weird pulsing tumour on its chest, a moaning mouth under the tumour, and an angry gremlin face on the crotch? What the FUCK is the Dark Jeroid? Like, seriously, what the fuck? I remember this from the anime, too, and... holy shit, what is this thing?
So it's okay for a character to literally be called the Hell Poemer if you parse it as Helpoemer with one 'L'? And change the crucifix that the Helpoemer is attached to into a less-obviously-a-cross? Man, I can never get what gets past these censors. Helpoemer is one of the major monsters in the later arcs of the anime, being one of the more powerful monsters used by Marik. And it's... it's a pretty creepy demon man. A decaying, gross blue corpse with skin-folds for eyes, screaming mouths on its chest, creepy dead-man-position arms, and a fucked-up crucifix he's attached to? It's certainly a pretty fucked-up looking monster for sure!
Byser Shock (or Viser Shock, depending on the translation) is meant to be a torture device, and it's also a demon. And... it's part of two machine parts with the far-later-released in the TCG Byser Des (or Viser Death), both of which are based on a particularly fucked-up, spiky and BDSM-y version of an electric chair. And in the original manga, Byser Shock and Byser Des are summoned as part of the "the card game attacks you for real, because of ancient Egyptian magic!" storyline, where one of the supporting characters, Mai Valentine, is subjected to being captured by this straight-up torture machine. The anime, realizing just how fucked-up it was to show a teenage girl being bound by this mean-looking torture machine (and subsequently being actually tortured) replaced it with the far tamer magic manacles called Holding Arms and Holding Legs. The Byser Shock/Byser Des designs do honestly look pretty disturbing, though!
Lava Golem is... it's a big golem made out of lava, holding a birdcage with some poor sap trapped onto it. And it's got the goofiest face ever! Lava Golem's artwork is one that makes the most sense if you watch or read the battle that featured it, because the Lava Golem is actually summoned as a monster for your opponent, and it's going to 'cage' your opponent and slowly deal damage to him as the lava drips into the birdcage. Pretty interesting visualization of "donate a debilitating card for your monster" tricks from M:TG!
Shapesnatch is apparently a machine monster, but it's... what is it? It's got a huge eyeball set into what appears to be a body of gross sinewy flesh, covered with a top-hat and a mechanical collar-mask thing, but its flavour text notes that it's "a bow tie with horrible power" that attacks an opponent by controlling others. So is the Shapesnatch actually the bow tie itself, and the creature we actually see in this art piece just some unfortunate one-eyed cyclops that the Shapesnatch is 'snatching' to use? Questions we'll never get answers to, I'm afraid. Video games does show that the Shapesnatch has a dapper-as-shit outfit, as well as apparently a mace that ends up with a hand giving the thumbs-up. Oh, Shapesnatch, what are you?Originally the "Moisture Alien", the Moisture Creature is... what is that thing? It's a glowing ball of purple with two glowing dot-eyes, floating above a Matrix-style ether space, right next to... a ray-gun and an umbrella? Also, despite being an alien in the original Japanese, apparently aliens are considered "Fairies" or Angels, depending on your language? Apparently the Mositure Creature is another dude that kinda-sorta makes more sense, because it's a monster that tied into a Yu-Gi-Oh video game... but in that game, he's apparently simultaneously a straight-up alien trapped in the game, a secret unlockable card, or something? I have a feeling that between Souleater, Shapesnatch and Moisture Creature, some of these cards are made with the specific gimmick of you discovering its true, full form in these video games. Huh!
Originally called "Grudge" in the original Japanese version, the localization team decided to turn this aquatic monster into... "Mucus Yolk"? I'm not even mad, that's such a gross-sounding name for a slime monster, but one that's so hilarious! Certainly makes this bizarre, presumably mutated chicken egg of sorts into a far, far more memorable monster than the otherwise generic "Grudge".
Oh, hey, that goblin from Upstart Goblin shows up again! Apparently, he's gone through a Bubble Crash, which is both very real and honestly equally hilarious and also hits right at home... and that poor Upstart Goblin went from being a dude dropping coins onto the floor into swapping positions in Second Coin Toss, where he's now the dude kneeling and taking the scraps of coin dropped by an upstart human. Poor rich goblin man, he's now poor and a beggar!
This isn't going to be the last we see of the Upstart Goblin!
We've got a bunch of trap cards I really like. Fatal Abacus just looks pretty creepy with its demonic-looking eyes, claws and general body horror... but it's also a fucking abacus, y'know? The equivalent of a calculator? It's like, a fleshy abomination that probably has powers from beyond, but it's still a fucking abacus. That's honestly pretty damn hilarious.
I love that the Yu-Gi-Oh team has fun. Trap of Board Eraser is probably something that flies a lot of Western audiences' head, but it's kind of a common prank in Japanese anime and manga (and real life, I would gather) where people in a class would prank someone by putting a blackboard eraser balanced on top of the door, and anyone who walks through it gets whacked in the head. That's mean, but it's hilarious when it happens to that random ogre kid. I love that this is a Yu-Gi-Oh card in a set that has cards like "Curse of Aging" and "Call of the Mummy" as spell and trap cards. Like, shit, you can basically cast this thing on something like Dark Ruler Ha Des and imagine him getting pelted in the head with a blackboard eraser, and being so flustered he fails to deal damage and discards a card from its controller's hand instead.
Bad Reaction to Simochi is apparently meant to be a "Bad Reaction to Smooch", or something along those lines, but that poor blue-skinned girl in that art piece seems to be... molested by the ghostly hands? That and the combination of the title of the card being "Bad Reaction" honestly is bizarre -- the artwork makes it look like some ghostly assault (molestation or otherwise), but the card name kind of makes it look like an allergy or something. I really don't know what is going on with this card.
Barrel Behind the Door, meanwhile, is probably the best card in this set. Like, okay, Pharaonic Guardian is themed around people protecting the Pharaoh's grave. Okay, that makes sense. You've got the undead mummies, you've got the Anubis jackal-men, you've got the sorcerers and warriors, you've even got the giant sphinx and the zombie pyramid turtle. When all else fails, though, you've got the Barrel Behind the Door, which is a giant fuck-off revolver activated by chains, and the goddamn gun is gold inlaid with jewels and general Egyptian regalia. This is simultaneously so stupid but so awesome at the same time.
And now we enter the rest of the monster cards. I'll still try to say one or two things about each of the monster cards, but we will definitely rapid-fire through the spell and trap cards.
I guess we'll go through the 'sets' or cycles of cards, yeah? We've got a bunch more figures from Japanese legends, including the Susa Soldier (Susano'o in the original Japanese, again, named after the Shinto god of storms of the same name) and Otohime (the underwater princess of the sea in various Japanese myths). And they're... they're neat-looking, and kinda cool, but I don't have a whole ton to say about them other than maybe make jokes about Naruto and One Piece, and I'm too sleepy to think up of any good material.
Also I'm not sure what that bizarre Time Bokan warp field background is supposed to be at the background of all of these Spirit monsters. Like, that looks so bizarrely sci-fi themed, when all of the Spirit monsters have been consistently themed from mythology.
Great Long Nose is, of course the "Great Tengu" in the original Japanese versions, based after the forest goblins in Japanese myths. It's interesting how some of the Spirits get completely bizarre half-translations like Great Long Nose and Susa Soldier, while some, like Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi and Otohime get to keep their original names. Fushi no Tori, literally "immortal bird" is meant to represent the phoenix in Japanese myths.
Again, not much to say here -- tengus and phoenixes are pretty neat and it's nice to see them represented here. The artwork's cool, but I really don't have much to say.
Asura Priest, or just straight-up "Asura" in the original Japanese, is based on the Asura, a race of deities in Hindiusm and Buddhism. Not a whole ton to say here.
Dark Dust Spirit is one that's not a specific figure from Japanese mythology, and this is the only spirit monster from Pharaonic Guardian. I guess this is meant to represent a generic undead desert spirit or something? He does look kinda oni-ish if you squint, although considering how Egyptian-themed the Pharaonic Guardian set is, I doubt that.
Maharaghi is a Dogu monster, just like the Pokemon Baltoy and the Digimon Shakkoumon! This is kind of a boring Dogu monster, though, just literally the doll with a zoomed-in version of its face in the background. I guess even though it doesn't really have anything to do with Egypt, it's related to tombs and archaeology? I dunno. That's about it for spirits.
I remember this one from the anime! Injection Fairy Lily's (Injection Angel Lily in the original Japanese) background originally had a whole ton of Red Crosses, but that gets changed in international releases because Red Cross can sue you, apparently. Also, the way she's straddling that massive injection needle is very phallic, yeah? I'm not the one that sees it? While the needle is kept in the cards, the anime turns it into a rocket, which, arguably, is even more phallic.
We have Gravekeepers now! From Pharaonic Guardian. And I sat and thought for a while, but man, I really have nothing to say here. We just get a bunch of guards and members of the same Egyptian tribe that's guarding the tomb of the pharaohs. Some use spells, some use spears. Is this meant to be Marik's tribe from original Yu-Gi-Oh? Eh.
And here are the rest of the Gravekeepers, which look a bit more interesting. Gravekeeper's Assailant, being straight-up some dude from Assassin's Creed, just looks straight-up cooler than the others, while I do like just how sycophantic the pose on Gravekeeper's Vassal looks. Also a fan of how the background of hieroglyphics is incorporated into the card art for Vassal and Spy, where their shadows respectively have the hieroglyphic background.
Charm of Shabti, referencing the Shabti (or Ushabti) funerary figures, isn't actually a Gravekeeper, but is one that's connected to the Gravekeeper synergy. Not much to say here, it's certainly very Egyptian-themed!
So we get a pair of monsters that fuse again, this time the Frontier Wiseman and the Possessed Dark Soul. Some magician with a crown and a monocle, fusing together with a burning horned demon made out of flame... wait, actually... Ha Des's horns aren't okay, but Possessed Dark Soul gets to keep his horns? You know what's actually censored? Dark Soul's original Japanese name, which is Blood Soul. Man, I do not get the censorship standards. Possessed Dark Soul's effect is fun, you can basically sacrifice the card and take control of all of your opponent's weaker (and presumably weaker-willed) monsters. And the Wiseman, which the Dark Soul will possess in the fusion, ranks among this!
Either way... these are pretty standard monsters for their respective spellcaster and fiend types, honestly, but the little fantasy story of them fusing together into a terrible monster is pretty neat. Again, while not the most exciting of fusion monsters, I do appreciate that the fusion monsters are at least far more flavourful than previous random fusions like Musician King or Roaring Ocean Snake, y'know?
That said, Dark Balter the Terrible is... he's a pretty neat, if standard, demon-man. I do really like that we get the exact same robe and whatever that white scarf-like thing is supposed to be from the Frontier Wiseman, really hammering home that this is the Possessed Dark Soul possessing the Wiseman, and turning him into a far more powerful possessed man, y'know? Apparently, according to the yu-gi-oh wiki, this dude's whole fusion theme is supposed to be a homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula... at least the whole "good king gets possessed by a demon and gets turned into a monster" part, anyway, if not the vampire part. In the original Japanese, Dark Balter is specifically identified as a "Majin", something that future Yu-Gi-Oh cards would consistently translate as djinn.
Patrician of Darkness, meanwhile, is a lot more of a standard vampire monster. With elf ears for some reason, but he's got a badass veiny bat-winged cape. His original Japanese name was called "Noble de Noir", which is pretty damn cool sounding! Not much to say here, but I do like him.
Another fusion pair, the Spirit Reaper is just your good old Grim Reaper style enemy, a skeleton man in a hood holding a big-ass scythe. I own this card and for the longest time I didn't realize that was meant to be a skull instead of the nose of a weird goblin-like face jutting out.
Nightmare Horse is another mummy-themed monster, but instead of a horse corpse, it's a goddamn horse made entirely of demonic blue flames underneath! A pretty cool, if simple, monster design that combines a couple of "demon horse" concepts into one.
And obviously, they combine into the Reaper on the Nightmare, which is just the Spirit Reaper riding around on the horse shaking his scythe in the air. He looks like he's having a dang good time! It's not the most creative fusion out there, but I do like the simplicity of having a skeleton reaper-man just finding his demon horse friend and then they just gallop around and have a grand old time collecting souls or whatever it is Spirit Reapers do.
Mysterious Guard is literally another spellcaster monk man that's just there. Again, as in my M:TG reviews, there's nothing wrong to throw in a couple of "just a knight/just a mage/just a random dude" monsters here and there to really emphasize how special the other monsters are... but they're just so boring, y'know?
I think we'll just go through a bunch of monsters based on their tribal types, I guess. Exiled Force is just a bunch of soldiers, and The Hunter With 7 Weapons is just a dude that either found a bunch of magical weapons, all of which he liked, or he's just over-encumbered from over-looting. Either way... pretty boring.
These are a bunch of knights that wear a relatively similar brand of silver armour and red cape as Freed, and I'm 99% sure the Marauding Captain specifically shows up in the background of several spell and trap cards in the future as well. Either way, though, they're just kinda there, y'know? It's kind of a shame that it's Freed, Dai Grepher and Marauding Captain that gets to reoccur as characters through the subsequent cards and not someone more interesting like Dark Jeroid or something.
What is the Sasuke Samurai? He's some sort of midget with an orange for a head, a kunai for a topknot, and eyes and eyebrows that looks drawn in. I was baffled at this thing, and apparently, it's a reference to yet another Konami game, the Mystical Ninja video game series, and the Sasuke Ninja Robot is a character there. Okay, then. This one probably doesn't have a brutal backstory involving a dead family clan and weird eye powers that basically just do what's convenient for the plot.
A Man with Wdjat basically describes every second character from Egypt in the original Yu-Gi-Oh manga, yeah? The Eye of Wdjat is like, the mascot for Yu-Gi-Oh as a franchise, and this guy has three of them. Not much to say here, and for a while I thought he was meant to tie in with the Gravekeeper clan.
Shadow Tamer, originally called Demon Tamer in the original Japanese (in yet another example of the word "Demon" being mis-translated), is... she's basically kind of a counter to Demons (or Archfiends, or Skulls...) because she apparently uses that whip to take control of the enemy fiends. I mean, the Summoned Skull is into BDSM, I can believe that. Her original artwork was waaay more sexy, and this one I can kinda understand why they had to censor a lot -- something that actually ends up being done relatively well, considering how iffy some of the other censorship attempts have been.
Meanwhile the Dragon Manipulator (Dragon Rider in Japanese) basically has the exact same effect, but with dragons. He's apparently riding on a dragon version of the Tauntaun from Star Wars: Episode V. Not a whole ton to say here, again, I guess he's basically like that kid from How To Train Your Dragon? He knows which treats to give to dragons to make them obey you at least until the end of the End Phase.
As I said before, Legacy of Darkness featured a bunch of dragons. Because I liked dragons as a kid, I remembered trading some other less-interesting-to-young-me cards for these two specific ones -- which are completely useless Normal monsters with no actual effects, but Luster Dragon #2 and The Dragon Dwelling in the Cave have pictures of dragons and they look neat.
Luster Dragon #2 is weird, by the way. The first Luster Dragon was called "Sapphire Dragon" in Japanese, and #2 is called "Emerald Dragon" in Japanese, but for whatever reason they decided to turn all of the gemstone dragons into Luster Dragons?
Apparently the Dragonborn (D&D reference, not a Skyrim one) also exist in the Yu-Gi-Oh world, because despite being lizard-men, these are considered straight-up dragons instead of reptiles or beast-warriors. Lizard Soldier is particularly interesting, since its name explicitly identifies it as a lizard, and not a dragon, and honestly does kinda look like some nice, tropical lizard. Troop Dragon is an army of dragon-men with dragon heads and wings. They're pretty neat, too. Not much to say here
And Gray Wing is our last dragon in these two sets, unless I miss something else. Not much to say here, he's another generic European-style dragon, but a lot less interesting than the others we've seen in this set.
Great Dezard is just some random spellcaster dude with a very fancy, bizarre-looking headress. He's... he's there.
And apparently we've got a bunch of snake-people, which... actually kinda fits with the Egyptian theme. Cobraman Sakuzy is a muscle-bound man with a cobra head and a snake-tail, but ultimately the rest of his body is just a regular human body with snake parts attached. Pretty cool looking snake monster, still.
Serpentine Princess is a pretty interesting take on a snake monster. Instead of a human with a snake head, or a snake with a humanoid upper torso, she's... she appears to be of the latter sort, but instead of a pretty human face (or a Medusa-style face), hers is contorted into a monstrously reptilian one with a massive grin, a horn, and generally elongated features. Her original Japanese name was just straight-up "Naga", meaning that yeah, this was meant to be a serpent deity of sorts. Okay, then!
A bunch of swarm monsters! Swarm monsters show up a lot in Magic: The Gathering, but not that much in Yu-Gi-Oh. Swarm of Scarabs and Swarm of Locusts are definitely extremely flavourful for the cursed pyramid locale of Pharaonic Guardian, although they don't really do anything super-interesting.
Kryuel was just straight up "Kurueru", how the Japanese pronounce the English word "Cruel". He's... he's a mean-looking demon, all fleshy with bat wings and an angry face and ram horns. Opticlops, meanwhile, is apparently a cyclops fiend monster that serves Ha Des. He's otherwise honestly kind of boring. Not much to say here, these two are definitely the more boring lesser fiends from Legacy of Darkness.
Originally "Raremetal Soldier" and "Raremetal Lady", they get translated as Roboyarou and Robolady. And... I'm not sure why the old translation teams really loved slapping on "-yarou" into random cards that have nothing to do with it. -Yarou is kind of a derogative, insulting term that charitably translates to "punk", or "punk bastard", so I guess it's their way to insert some stealth quasi-profanity into the game?
These are not super interesting, just a bunch of metal men with human eyes under those helms. They're like shitty made-in-China versions of Robocop or something.
And then we get their fused versions, and you get to choose whether you want the fused form to have metal boobs or not. Super Robolady and Super Roboyarou are honestly just kinda there. It's kinda neat, I guess, to have the same two monsters potentially fuse into two different final forms, but eh.
The Illusory Gentleman is neat! He's like that Faceless Illusionist dude from way back when, but instead of being a creepy puppet guy, he's a creepy magician-clown guy with a hat with a single eye on top. Or is that his real head? He's a neat design, anyway, and I do like his description telling us that he sometimes commits crimes, and sometimes saves people. Very Catwoman!
Cobra Jar is just a jar full of cobras, and when you summon it you also summon a bunch of snakes. Again, pretty flavourful stuff for an Egypt-tomb-themed set.
Ehhh, not a whole ton to say here. Wolf Ax-Wielder is interesting, I guess, in that the wolf head has gray fur but the rest of his body is just like a tattooed man, but eh. King Tiger Wanghu is just an angry saber-toothed gray tiger with armour and clothes. Wanghu is "King Tiger" in Chinese, so his name is literally King Tiger King Tiger.
Gotta suck to be this badass, bizarre bird-man with a robotic chest, metallic wing muscles, and the most gorgeous set of hair that would make Super Saiyan 3 Goku jealous... and your name is Birdface. Like, what?
Kabazauls was originally "Kabasaurus", where Kaba means hippo in Japanese. And it's a sneezing hippo-dinosaur. I'm genuinely not sure if the translation team just completely missed out that this Dinosaur-type monster has -saurus on his name, or what. Kabasaurus is pretty neat. A hippo dinosaur would be silly enough, but this is a hippo dinsoaur whose main attack ability is by sneezing, which I do find pretty just random and out there.
An Owl of Luck is a good owl child. I like him. Not much to say here.
Mystical Knight of Jackal is probably meant to represent the Egyptian jackal death-god Anubis, or a minion thereof, although I really do like that he has robotic chestplates. Like, I guess he got on with the times, y'know? It's the 20th century, after all, and Anubis can apparently afford some Roboyarou-style mechanical enhancements.
A Cat of Ill Omen is definitely very flavourful for an Egyptian curse themed set, although this pampered plump housecat is definitely not the type you'll find in prehistoric Egypt. Gora Turtle has some markings on his shell that I assume are meant to be hieroglyphics, and it's got the most simultaneously adorable and unsettling face there. Does he hang out with the Pyramid Turtle?
It's amazing how you go from "Angel Knight Perseus" into Airknight Parshath. Mostly how they basically bastardized Perseus (Pashiasu) into Parshath, and that's technically a valid translation of the katakana. Like, okay, cut out the angelic references. I kinda get that. But Persues into Parshath? Eh, anyway, this is kind of a generic angel lady. Not much to say here.
What the fuck is the Fiber Jar, though? It's like this giant baobab tree with a massive root network, but at the end of that root network is like... a UFO or something? And it's called a "jar" for some reason? Is this meant to be that huge tree-cannon thing from Castle in the Sky? Which honestly is probably what inspired this, but man, what a bizarre name to give to it. Fiber Jar.
Yomi Ship is basically "Underworld Ship", and I guess it's meant to represent the Egyptian journey to the afterlife. And while the most famous underworld rivers are those in Japanese and Grecian mythology, the Egyptians also have one in their Duat... it's just not as infamously prominent as the whole "let's weigh your heart against the feather of truth" part of Egyptian underworld mythology.
Winged Sage Falcos is just a bird-man with some really fancy robes. I absolutely love just how photorealistic the bird face on this monster is. I'm pretty sure I used to have this card, too, but I traded it away. Probably for one of the dragon cards.
Master Kyonshee is a Jiangshi, a Chinese version of the Western zombie or vampire, and specifically how Jiangshi often make appearances in pop culture in China as being controlled by evil martial artists. Kyonshi is the Japanese reading of the kanji for Jiangshi. Pretty neat to see Jiangshis anywhere at all, actually, even if this one is just a generic normal monster.
Okay, so Fushioh Richie is like, funny, right? This undead skeleton-zombie-man, and his name is "Richie"? It gets even more funny when you realize his original Japanese name was Nosuferatu Ritchi -- or, well, Nosferatu Lich. But somehow, mid-translation, they went from "Nosferatu Lich" to "Fushioh Richie". Okay, then, he's a Lich called Richie. Okay.
Considering the amount of work that the localization team does to reduce the bust size of most ladies in Yu-Gi-Oh, Maiden of the Aqua is one of the few to avoid the international edition's reduction mammoplasty spree. That is honestly kind of a ridiculously out-of-proportion set of mammaries on the Maiden, especially compared to her tiny waist. That must take a toll on her back! Or is that why she decides to live underwater?
Poison Mummy! We are getting to the mummies. This one is pretty creepy, but nothing too remarkable.
Royal Keeper is the sort of mummy guardians you expect to find in the pharaoh's tomb, while Wandering Mummy are probably the rank-and file troops you fight early in the dungeon if this was a traditional video game dungeon. Both are pretty neat mummies, but I really don't have a whole ton to say here. They add to the "Zombie" pool, which is neat.
Thunder Nyan Nyan is a catgirl oni playing drums. Like, she's a Raijin oni but a catgirl. Okay. Not much to say here, at least she's different. Molten Behemoth is a giant rock monster with metallic gauntlets and an angry-ass face. I really don't have much to say about the Behemoth, he's... he's kinda there, and we've had far more interesting rock and lava giants before.
The Timeater is just a clock that apparently eats time. Like, I dunno, a machine that eats time really could've been a lot interesting, y'know? Even giving the clock limbs or a face or something would've gone a long way into making this a lot neater, even if it's a ripoff of Time Wizard.
Gradius' Option is another card that follows the saga of Bandai's Gradius arcade game, and honestly, makes no sense as a monster card instead of a spell card until you realize that Options are like these little mini-ships that follow the main Gradius ship around. Okay!
I own the card of Robotic Knight and I don't know why I like him so much. He's basically this robot-man with a fancy set of Napoleon-style sailor outfit. I do really like that instead of a pirate's hook-arm, he's got a laser cannon instead. I dunno -- I'm pretty sure part of my love for this card is because I own a copy of one, but honestly, between the colouration and the hilarious combination of this sort of fancy armour and a clunky robot ends up really striking a chord with the 90's kid in me, y'know?
Dice Jar (Dice Pot in Japanese) is this bizarre-ass drum-jar thing with a face that looks like Berserk's Behelit's crack-addicted cousin, seemingly spitting out two dice. And when Dice Jar is summoned, the players basically roll a dice to decide damage. It's just such a gross-looking face for what's otherwise a jar-rolling rock monster. I can't help but love this stupid-looking gross thing.
Oh, hey, it's a pair of cards showing off Freed the Matchless General, showing him making a plan, attacking, and then returning alive after being tattered. None of these are super exciting, but, again, as noted before, it does show off some of these cards in rudimentary storylines.
We also have a couple of spells showing off Street Fighter Warrior Dai Grepher activating some sort of array of revealing light, and then joining the "A. Forces". Okay! And now we have a bunch of cards showcasing Ha Des doing Ha Des things. Which apparently involves him doing dark overlord thing as casting dark magic, and barking really, really loud. Hey, I didn't say that these are going to be particularly entrancing storylines or whatever.
We've got a bunch of "dragons doing destructive dragon things" going on here, and perhaps the coolest bit is that for the spell and trap cards, they actually feature some of the specific dragons from the set. Tyrant Dragon and Cave Dragon in particular for these. I own both Stamping Destruction and Super Rejuvenation, and I always wondered what part of the Super Rejuvenation showed any sort of healing, surely that blue bit are just tattoos on the dragon, right? Turns out that it was originally flesh and blood in the original Japanese art, but it got censored.
More dragon-y stuff, this time co-starring the Dragon Dwelling in the Cave, Tyrant Dragon again, and Fiend Skull Dragon. I own Dragon's Rage, I think.
Not much to say here. A Legendary Ocean is a field card that shows up in the anime a couple of times, I think? In the Japanese version it's just straight-up called "Atlantis".
Heart of Clear Water is basically another Behelit-like face.
A bunch of books! In a hilarious translation choice, the Book of Life and the Book of Moon are translated fully into English, but the Book of Taiyou isn't actually translated into the Book of the Sun. I'd take it if the Book of Moon remained the "Book of Tsuki" or some shit, y'know? Consistency? But apparently quality control in this set is kind of shit.
A bunch of Pharaonic Guardian cards that basically show a bunch of graverobbers fighting against the mummies guarding the pyramids. Call of the Mummy has a particularly creepy mummy on the forefront, while that poor dude in Timidity's card art has such a hilarious expression... although, real talk, if you had to walk through a bunch of sarcophagi filled with undead mummies, you'd be making that face too.
Not a whole ton to say here. I own Creature Swap. Smoke Grenade of the Thief has fun card art.
Also not a whole ton to say here. Convulsion of Nature has got a cool art piece, I guess.
A series of spell cards showcasing Clown Riddler with Question, Card Shuffle and Reversal Quiz, like, we've got game show themed spell cards for some reason? Okay.
Dark Snake Syndrome has got a particularly disturbing artwork. It's not just the curse of the snake going through the poor sap's body, but rather just how contorted that neck looks.
A bunch more spell cards. Metamorphosis has a really, really disturbing card art with some dude having a cat-face and a Voldemort/Quirrel body horror thing going on with a demon face on its back. Necrovalley is the super-duper important field spell card for the Gravekeepers archetype.
A bunch more spell cards. I always find cards like Reasoning to be hilarious, where it's just a card art of some dude playing Yu-Gi-Oh, pointing dramatically and causing cards to fly up. Compare it to the other cards in this set -- well, okay, Dark Designator also features a dramatic point, I guess.
We've got a bunch of random sci-fi stuff out of nowhere. Terraforming is just straight-up something happening in space, Life Absorbing Machine is some horrifying cyborg sci-fi stuff right there, Magic Reflector is a spider-tank robot, and Buster Rancher is a space marine holding a big fuck-off gun.
I love how Yu-Gi-Oh goes from cards like Royal Tribute that's so Egyptian-themed, or fantasy cards like Tyrant Dragon and Leaf Sprite and Helpoemer, to random giant sci-fi space rifle bazooka.
A bunch more trap cards. Narrow Pass has some interesting random monsters in it, Curse of Aging looks particularly disturbing and kinda fits with the whole cursed tomb thing, and Coffin Seller looks like an untrustworthy NPC in a fantasy video game.
A bunch more trap cards. I feel like these two sets has a whole ton of trap cards. I'm 80% sure that Soul Demolition features Ha Des's hand? And Royal Oppression might feature either Freed or one of his goons? Man, Freed's a dick, if that's the case.
A bunch more trap cards! I own both Disappear and Bottomless Trap Hole, the latter having a pretty creepy artwork. Last Turn shows off Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi and basically confirms my theory that he's a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character as he flexes and tries to suplex the Yamata Dragon. It's also, I think, one of the longest-banned cards in the game, but I can't be arsed to read that long-ass text.
You see just how bizarre Yu-Gi-Oh is? You get magic-themed cards like Ominous Fortunetelling and Spirit's Invitation, which look delightfully creepy and fantasy-themed... and then you get the bizarrely wacky Nutrient Z, which looks like a joke item from a space-themed JRPG, and Fiend Comedian, which is drawn in an entirely different art style. You got to love how ridiculously inconsistent Yu-Gi-Oh's themes are.
Not a whole ton to say here, other than the fact that I am really, really surprised Nightmare Wheel wasn't censored. It's a straight-up torture device, what the fuck!
A bunch more Egyptian-tomb-themed trap cards. You've got a mask, a bunch of ghosts, a quicksand and an angry sphinx. Is that camel in Bottomless Shifting Sand's artwork what eventually became Des Lacooda?
And this time, we get a bunch of trap cards showing the graverobbers being trapped in the pyramids! Don't grave-rob, guys. Especially not in a setting where there apparently are mummies and demons every step of the way.
And we have a bunch of kinda treasure-themed cards, I guess? I loved the card art for Reckless Greed. I own one of these, and I loved how stupidly greedy the face of that dude on the card art is. He probably moonlights as a Kaiji background character.
D. Tribe has some really cool, if disgusting artwork. Otherwise, not much to say here.
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