My brother makes me play the card game, and I got tired of the anime soon enough.
My dad borrowed some Yu-Gi-Oh! manga from the library, and I have to say, it's actually good - before they got to the card game. Yep, Yu-Gi-Oh! was around before it became focused on Duel Monsters.
In those early manga stories, Yugi would devise games - and even improvise them - to defeat bullies, gangsters, and other ne'er-do-wells. One involved stabbing a stack of yen bills on top of one's hand to get as much money as possible without stabbing oneself, another involved playing air hockey on a heated table with an ice puck that had a test tube of explosive chemicals in it. The fate of the loser was usually pretty horrible...one guy lost his soul, another guy had his vision become permanent mosaiced... o_0 Strange how the almost evil Pharaoh could be a good guy.
There's references to things you would never see in a kid's show, so what most people know of Yu-Gi-Oh! today I imagine is quite commercially successful and kid-friendly, but I like the darker and more free-form and varied games presented in the original. The cartoon around Duel Monsters is really Calvinball with cards - they butcher the rules of the game to suit the storyline.
I probably don't have patience to even watch this, though I did catch a couple minutes when my brother was watching it...I suppose parts of it can be funny. I liked the PS3 reference in one. RIDGE RACER!
