YU-GI-OH! GX SEASON 2. (EPISODES 53-104)
BLEACH: COMPLETE SERIES 16. (EPISODES 343-366)
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: BOX 27. (EPISODES 336-348)
DRAMATICAL MURDER: COMPLETE SEASON.
LOVE, CHUNIBYO AND OTHER DELUSIONS (HEART THROB)
REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is one for the kids, supposedly, but I know that there are plenty of adults out there too who love this kind of thing. I actually know of grown men here in Dublin who like to meet up every week and beat the living shite out of each other at the YU-GI-OH! trading card game, and the
same applies to POKEMON trading
card games.
Me, I always lump the YU-GI-OH!s in with the POKEMONs and the DIGIMONs, but I've been informed by my kids that these are three very different franchises and should be treated as such.
Oh, and that only a moron of the utmost lameness would ever confuse them with each other, haha.
To me, all Pokemons are little yellow Pikachus (the way Homer Simpson 'calls all music Mozart...!'), so I guess that that moron to which they're referring is me. Shocking way to talk about your aged parents. Kids today have no respect.
To me, all Pokemons are little yellow Pikachus (the way Homer Simpson 'calls all music Mozart...!'), so I guess that that moron to which they're referring is me. Shocking way to talk about your aged parents. Kids today have no respect.
Well, the good news for fans of the YU-GI-OH! GX franchise is that the lovely people at MANGA UK and ANIMATSU have recently re-released SEASON 2: EPISODES 53-104 in a rather snazzy box-set. You'd be surprised how long-running some of these Japanese animé series can be. Many of them frequently run into hundreds and hundreds of episodes.
This particular box-set contains a whopping fifty-one episodes for your delectation. At roughly twenty minutes apiece, that's a lot of viewing for your son or daughter, which translates to many free hours for you and your significant other to spend enjoying the adult pursuits your kids normally prevent you from indulging in. Capiche...? Yeah yeah, I know. As Bart Simpson (from my personal favourite of a long-running animated series) once said, everything except capiche...!
Anyway, for the uninitiated, YU-GI-OH! started life as a Japanese manga series about gaming written and illustrated by a chap called Kazuki Takahashi. As is usually the way with these things, a franchise was built up around it that eventually included trading card games, video games and spin-offs of both the manga and animé variety. In other words, the guy who came up with the idea is now a flippin' billionaire, unless he squandered it all on hookers and booze. Which, if he did, I'm sure he enjoyed...!
YU-GI-OH! started out being about a cute kid called Yugi Moto, a shy student at Domino High School. He loves to play DUEL MONSTERS, a game he was taught by his Grandpa who owns the neighbourhood gaming shop and who is a shit-hot expert on every game you care to name.
Something else that Grandpa does for Yugi is that he gives him a mysterious Egyptian artefact known as the 'Millenium Puzzle' that no-one has so far been able to solve. Yuki solves it, however, and immediately becomes imbued with these magic powers that enable him to challenge opponents to trading card games, dice games or role-playing board games.
If he 'plays with honour,' as his Grandpops taught him, and respects 'the heart of the cards,' ie, if he believes in his deck, then as you can imagine he'll be lucky. But it isn't luck really, is it? It's good winning out over bad. Yuki's game-playing alter ego is called Yama Yugi. He's more powerful than the real Yuki because he's filled with the spirit of the ancient Pharoah who was bunking down in the 'Millenium Puzzle,' if you follow me.
Through the cards, Yama Yugi has a load of super-cool monsters at his disposal, such as 'Mammoth Graveyard,' 'Summoned Skull,' 'The Magician Of Black Chaos,' Dark Sage' and 'Dark Magician.' Was Yuki's Grandpa right to open up such a Pandora's Box of a can of worms of a kettle of fish for a young lad like Yuki? Who knows? That's a horse of a different colour all right...
By Episodes 53-104, of course, things have moved on a bit but the basic premise of YU-GI-OH!
DUEL MONSTERS GX remains the same. Duelling or challenging opponents takes place in every episode, using the cards to bring your 'monsters' to life to, I suppose, do your dirty work for you. Ha! Nice work if you can get it, I say. I could use a few of those wee monsters around the house all right, especially if they do the kind of chores I personally despise, like taking out the rubbish.
We have Jaden Yuki as our central character now, and he's a student at Duel Academy, an alma mater that teaches its pupils how to play the super-exciting trading card game, DUEL MONSTERS. F***ing hell. All my school taught me was how to hide in the janitor's mop closet swilling vodka during gym class. Funny, isn't it, how every Tuesday was my 'time of the month...?'
Anyway, Jaden and his pals spend every episode duelling the various opponents who cross their path, including a mysterious new student with the rather cool name of Aster Phoenix. 'A. P.' has a bit of a shocking secret up his sleeve. Wonder who'll be the first to ferret it out...?
Now to tell you about my personal connection to the whole YU-GI-OH! phenomenon. At a recent animé and gaming convention held here in Ireland, my firstborn offspring met and conversed with none other than Eric Stuart, the actor who provides the voice of Seto Kaiba in YU-GI-OH! and also, incidentally, the voices of hugely popular characters Brock and James (resident baddie from the evil Team Rocket!) from POKEMON. He signed my sproglet's POKEMON and YU-GI-OH! cards with the immortal words... ERIC STUART. I really think he meant it too...
(PS, not to boast or anything but both my animé-and-manga-obsessed kinderlings have also met and chatted with Veronica Taylor, the original voice of Ash Ketchum in POKEMON. Two lovely signed photographs of her adorn each of their bedroom walls. Or they did, at least, the last time I could get into either of their rooms.
But you know the way that dirty washing and mould-encrusted cereal bowls build up in kids' bedrooms? Let's just say that it's too hard having to pick my way through the debris every time I need to call 'em for dinner, so I don't go up there much anymore. It's actually easier just to send 'em a text...!)
Anyway, this particular season of the excellent animé series YU-GI-OH! DUEL MONSTERS GX is out on release now courtesy of MANGA UK and ANIMATSU. That's pretty damn awesome news in itself , but if you'd like even more good news, well, get your laughing gear around this little lot. No fewer than four other series of animé-related entertainment are getting the red carpet/VIP treatment this month also. These are as follows:
BLEACH: COMPLETE SERIES 16. (EPISODES 343-366)
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: BOX 27. (EPISODES 336-348)
DRAMATICAL MURDER: COMPLETE SEASON.
LOVE, CHUNIBYO AND OTHER DELUSIONS (HEART THROB)
And remember, the more time your kids spend in front of the DVD/Blu-Ray machine watching these little gems, the longer you have to engage in more, shall we say, adult pursuits. Yep, it's definitely time to dig out those old gardening gloves for the summer...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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