YGO Season Zero: The Overlooked Series

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Hello guys, we're back at Holiday season everyone! Early Merry Christmas everybody, since I won't be here at that time, I'm traveling again.
To :iconmarianagatto: I'm sorry for her Picture, it is finished, but I'm havinf issuea with my editing program, and it ins't uploading right to a format compatible with DA. But I'll try to fix it as soon as possible, and give you as a Christmas Gift instead, with nothing to trade back.
      But anyway, let´s start this article with a series I personally love: Yu-gioh. That's right. It's weird I Always liked that show since the very first time I watched, but I was never into the "fandom" kinda stuff. I'll get there lately.But hey, I just watched it complitly and I read the first volumes of the Manga, until the 3th I guess, and I can't wait to see more. What can I say, it's a classic Masterpiece, full of created ideas, charismatic characters, na envolving plot, a badass hero, and I love how they part effort on the frienship, several years before MLP - Fim doing this. It make me feel the nostalgia of my childhood and early tens, playing the Yu-gi-oh card game with my friends, all the tradings that we also had that was similar in YGO in so many ways (such as Pokémon, Beyblade, the Tamagochi fever...) I'm so disapointed this series ended several years ago. And I watched many of the YGO spin-off shows such as GX,5D's, recently I started ZExAL, and plaining to see Arc-V. But no one of them have the place in my heart as the original Yu-gi-oh show, for me the best of all continuities, and I wish they continued. It was so great, I just rewatched it entire and it's not just as good, it's even much better than I remember watching for the first time, seing how timeless, mind chalanging, well written and well made is the animation, even being a dated anime style, feels so contemporary. For me, the Yu-gi-oh show is one of the best shows of all time, undenyebly... In fact, just by looking to the Picture of this show brings me back so many good memmories:



       Wait, ins't that the YGO series you were thinking of? Oh, you though I was going to talk about the Duel Monsters series, right? Hahaha, I fooled you, hahaha.... Yeah, that's NOT the YGO I was refering to, believe me. I was never that insteresting in the Duel Monster series when it first came out in the West on it's 4kids version, when I was a little girl. The "YGO" stuff I remember the most at that time was in fact the card game that was becaming popular. I was into the early girl puberty, when most of them goes into a "Tomboy" phase, explaining by the growing hormones, and the slightly higher lvels of testosterona just brfore the females hormones takes place and the girls starting becoming a woman. So if you were a girl who, at some point of your 8 - 11 was going into some sort of a "boyish" period, it is perfectly natural. I know some of them never goes into it, and stay as girly as expected at this age, that's normal too, but for me, that was the point in my life when I weared boys clothes, played sports and had consideably short hair, weorn a cap or berret, and mostly watched cartoons supposed for boys, as well as I played card games, and my favorite at that time was: Magic... Yeah, that old rivality between YGO players and Magic players, similar to the Digimon/Pokémon kind stuff. But for me there was no such a thing as rivality: I played both whenever  I got the chance. Not that I didn't watched the YGO Dueal Monsters series, I did, but it wasn't my favorite show at the time (thanks X-men Evolution or The Power Puff Girls, even  Digimon, Card Captors Sakura, the lst one I considere a much better card-related show...) But yeah, I remeber watching it, I liked the characters, mostly because they were funny, specially "Joey Wheeler" character, and I only watched because of the Duels, that I was Always excited to see happening. But years went by, I lost interest in the game that started to decreese in popularity, I lost ineterst on boy stuff and became more "girly", as it should be expected.
     Honestly, the only thing I could say is that, lately I started to have more interest on the Yami Yugi character, specially after he was reveald to be a Pharaoh, and I aways loved Egytian archeology stuff, and mummys and all of that. It was also a bit of "supernatural" related stuff I was more into, and he was literally a ghost, so it would fit. But I lost intest on the show, my "Yami crush" was temporary, the hormones took place, and I only started looking at guys with pecs and abs.
   Only several years later I rewatched the series on the internet, both dubbed and in Japanese, and I have to desagree to most of the YGO fans, but there is not that a "huge diferente" between those too version. I know 4Kids cutted a lot of stuff, made several adaptations, names were changed... But the plot was the same (and so were the problems). We'll get that later. And I wans't patient, I had little free time, so I skipped directly to the last season, and finished the series, by the time when there was only Japanese dub. It was na epic conclusion for a great show... or wasn't it? Well, not for me. Even feeling it was final concluded, I was a little disapointed. Something was clearing missing, I just could figure out "what" or "why" I was think of it.

But what happened later, changed my life (at least to what I thought of that series) forever...

 As I already pointed out in my last jornal, even after finishing the "Yu-gi-oh" (Duel Monsters) series, something was still missing, and I was surprisely disapointed with the end. Something didn't make sense for me. But I moved on with my life, started Junior High School, there were a lot of more important stuff going on.


Art by :queenaviata:

   However, one day I found a rare Yu-gi-oh manga, volume 1 in a bookstore. I didn't buy it, of course, but I read a few pages just for curiosity, expecting to see more or less the same as the series I watched before. To my surprise, it had nothing to do with the series, and there wasn't even a card game on it! That was weird, but one thing I noted: somehow the Yami character was more similar to the one I remembered and imagine if compared to his mainstream version. I didn't read it entire, as I had to buy it first. So instead, I looked for it on google, and I discovered Yu-gi-oh wasn't based on the game, in fact it was only introduced later. I thought "why did they skipped it anyway? As long as I knew, it seemed good, why didn't they made it into a series?" But I was wrong: there was a series, known by the fans as "season 0", the one that came out years before. When I first watched, there wasn't subtitled version in my language, and many episodes had no subtitles on it, but I watched it anyway. It was fantastic! I was outstanded since the first pilot episode. It was weird, was creepy, was terrified, and yet, somehow I was driven into it. After I finished watching, I moved on again, watching it again only several years later.
.: Light in the shadows :. by PrideAlchemist7
Art by: :iconpridealchemist7:
    
           Years later, I was about to finish high school and enetering the collage, and rewatched season 0 again, because it's a much sorter series. And therefore, something curious happened in my subconcious: as I starting "forgeting" the Duel Monster series, and season 0 was the one I saw more recently, they kinda "merged" together in my brain, so everytime I remember the DM series, I imagined the characters deeper, more complex, with better devoluped relationships and so on... I, unwittingly, created a "idealized" Duel Monster series of my Nostalgia, as if it was the best YGO series. But the worst was just about to come.

          So recently, a big shocking revealing: a new Yu-gi-oh movie is about to come next year! In their trailer, they summerized all the franchise since the manga, and the all animated spin-offs starting in... Duel Monster series.... Wait, wait, wait, where's the
f*&#ing season 0? Why didn't they even showed it to us? Why didn't they mentioned it in the retrospective? They can't just ignore it existed!
         Soon after, the unthinkable happened: they starting actually reprise the show in the West. I watched the episodes I watched so many times before, and yet I felt so dumb. It wasn't as good as I rmembered. The characters were just stereotypes, the relationships were hollow, it was filled by a typical anime  clichées, the card game were all over the place, and the duels were nothing but over-the-top exposition speakings. "Oh now" I hear some fans saying "it's the 4Kids version, you should watch the Japanese version instead, it's a Thousand times better!". So I did and... it was basecally the same. I don't care what people say: it was less sutpid, but still full of unbearable stuff. There was something wrong, those weren't the characters I remebered in my mind... Now I know why: as I said before, I was influented by their season 0 versions, so watched the other series felt like seeing a bad remake of a good movie. Even thought the characters had the same names and designs, they weren't as half as they could be, and a lot of thing were just messed up!
         Now, let me explain: I don't hate Yu-gi-oh. I don't hate the game, I even admire people who are good at. And I don't hate the Duel Monsters version, I find a nice typical Japanese anime series. But here is my proplem: it's a typical anime, and there are little things that I would say make it so much diferente from other world wide beloved anime such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, Pokémon, One Pice. Those "top" series/comics that everyone know the troops, the clichees, the characters types, most typically Japanese culture elements. And if you like anime and all those stuff, there's no problem. really, there's nothing wrong with it! But anyone might agree this is not excactly for everybody. There are a lot of moral dilemas, questions and issues that, if you are neither Japanese (or Asian at least) or watch constaly anime in your daily basis (as those die hard Otakus), you probly won't understand, won't get it, won't be able to feels it in all of those complexities, might miss a lot of stuff. And I won't lie about: I miss all those stuff too. See, it's not "personal", it's just a thing... 
a yami no yugi collage by yugiohlover911

        This is when this series have a diferencial: you don't "feel" like watching a typical anime. Not that absolutly nothing remeber a japanese anime, far from that. But it has so many elements that don't exist ONLY in Japanese culture. Things like value, morals, sins, misfists, crime, justice, frienship, fear, love, decicions... Not that it doesn't exist in other anmes, it's just they are ususally not the main focus. Mostly is all about honor: a boy who wants to prove himself, to bring honor to his Family, to be the best at some competition, a woman who wants to show her feminilility as a weapon among warriors or a person who want to pass na collage entrece exam. The rest is mostly secondary. Also the pacing is dfferent: it's direct, with little exposition dialogue, , good drama building, characters and plot devolupment. We see very little multiple subplots, or scenes interrupted in the middle of the situation, obligating you to have no choice but continuing watching untill it's over. I don't know about other people, but whenever that happens in a animated series I'm watching, I mostly stop, since I have little patiente on paying attention on too many things going on. For me, the simplest, the best, and this series is a máster on simplicity, yet being great on it's own.
         Another thing I want to point out is about how it is even better than the manga it is based on. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it's a surprisely good comic book for someone who was starting, but it wasn't entirely perfect: Kazuki Takahashi has Always been good at a  lot of thing on writing, drawing, designing, characters devoluping, but one thing he isn't good at, and even he die hard fans have to admit: he isn't good at writing female characters. In the comics, Tea/Anzu is a typical anime/manga girl as we see in most Japanese intended-for-boys stuff. Most of her thinking and ideas don't correspond to actual female thought, but to how guys sees and thinks (or wish they were) how women think/behave. If you're a guy Reading this, you'll propbaly see no problem, but if you're a chick, you'll the flaws. In the series, even when they aren't "perect", there are plenty of Strong, well build female chracters, either good or bad. Even Miho Nosaka, the charcter everybody complains about as beaing annoying, loud and overacting, she gained my heart and I starting liking her by the end of the series. Not only her: nearly all females in the first Yu-gi-oh comics shows to be this way. Another problem that most people don't see is all about the villains: most of them are just one dimention, mean spirited, plain bullies, either that or evil possed, crimnals. We barely see they reasons of point of view. I the season Zero, however, even when most are bullys, specially during the begining, they somehow maneged to devolup the villains but much better, sowing their reasons, stories, what motivates them, and even, in some cases, their redemption, which is fantastic.
       The series also focuses mostly entire in their characters, their relationships, their devoluping, and how they grow as a person. Not thet the other series don't have that, specially in Japanese dub, but this is not the main focus as it should be. For me, again the siple the best, and when you have good characters and relationships, the rest follows through by their own. I'm not saying the characters in DM aren't good, but their are more "generic", cookie cut types as we see in most animes/mangas. In season Zero, they are a little diferente and unique. Not thet there aren't chacters like them in other fcitons, but rearely they are done this well. The most surprising aspect of this is is that only in recente years those aspects became relevants in modern fiction, specially in TV shows meant for kids:


         As we can see, only NOW they are trying doing things season 0 already done several years ago. Ironically, that was probably the reason it didn't succeded back then: people back those days aren't ready for this kind of fiction. They expected more action, more stuff happening, epic battles, over the top reactions, and more of the products they were trying to sell (in Yu-gi-oh's case, oblvously the cards). When the little boys were watching this series, they were expecting seeing more duels on it. Since it happened very little, and they weren't the main focus of the story, so they were desapointed. Yugi was not the typical anime protagonista, and I probably know the reason why: this series is surprisely neutral gendered, compared to the Duel Monsters, which is clearly made for boys. So yugi representes somehow both males and females in terms of audience self indentifications. Man, even I remeber to indentified myself with him, and it's very rare for me indentifieng with amel characters. Even the balance of three guys/two chicks unlike the main group in the YGO DM three guys/one girls shows how they wanted this to be more neutral, so more avaliable for a wider audience. Even older audiences can watcing this better than younger, since I like it better and better each years goes by, while the other YGO seires and continuities, I always feel like "oh, I'm getting too old for this...". It is surprisely timeless and gets better and better over time. Even through the animation doen't age well, it's more unique, and "animasish" and a little more "cartoony". But it has its own style on it, compared to the other series which are more a "generic" anime style. And it's plot has some much potential, I'm so sad about how it all restriect to a card-game related franchise, each had so many possibilities. 
       I only hope someday in the near future, someone having the idea to bring back this series, remasteriese it and perhaps, who know!, even continues it. It would be so great. Until there, I have to content myself with the Yu-gi-oh theatrical movie next year. I hope at least this one, as having Kazuki Takashi as the producer, designer, writer and co-director, it will have more of the "season zero" on it. 'cause I'm sick of this card games series it became over the years!
 

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marianagatto's avatar
Eu assisti um pouco desse anime quando mais nova . Eu achava legal .