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You know people are getting way too much into the movie when:1) A girl starts crying at the end of the movie because it was over and she didn't want it to be.
2) The promo cards given away at the movies caused multiple fights over them. (This actually did happen when I saw the movie.)
Anyways, this is definitely the best anime movie that I have ever seen. After viewing the abysmal "Enter the Shadow Realm" series, I was doubting whether the movie would be good... but believe me, it was.
Yugi and his friends face their greatest challenge when their arch-rival Seto Kaiba obtains powerful cards from the now retired Maximillion Pegasus. More is at stake this time than a monster card championship, or even the rescue of Yugi's amateur-Egyptologist grandfather. Kaiba's challenge coincides with the discovery of the tomb of Anubis by a team of Egyptian archaeologists. The jackal-headed god is portrayed as an evil sorcerer whom the Pharaoh Yami defeated 5,000 years ago. The resurrected wizard uses Kaiba as a pawn in his plan to destroy the world, with everything hinging on the card game between Yugi and Kaiba. The plot is just one good thing about the movie, though.
Yugi and Joey really develop their friendship throughout Yugi's duel with Kaiba. Also, the action is just plain awesome.
Overall, any fan of the series will love this movie. A definite infinity/100.
P.S. My favorite quote in the movie comes from Seto Kaiba: "Let me get this straight. You're going to defeat me with a creampuff and an elf?" Kaiba does it againmakes you laugh your ass off.
Best Deals for Yu-Gi-Oh! - The Movie (2004)
...but it's still 4Kids, and they make a mockery of Kazuki Takahashi's masterpiece every week, every episode, so...Actually, even though I don't like what 4Kids does with the anime, I still watched the movie with an open mind, so I found it quite enjoyable. The animation wasn't as crappy as it could have been, the ranting duelists weren't as bad as they were in Battle City, and Kaiba's voice-actor displays definite improvement.
For those of you who don't know Jack 'bout Yu-Gi-Oh, don't start here. Walk into a bookstore, go to the manga graphic novel section, and pick up the Yu-Gi-Oh manga. As I write this, there are fifteen volumes available: Yu-Gi-Oh Vol. 1-7 which form the "Dark Beginnings" of the series and which are 90% Not There in the anime series we get in the States; Yu-Gi-Oh: Duelist Vol. 1-7 which form the bulk of Season One of said anime, in all its uncut glory; and Yu-Gi-Oh: Millennium World Vol. 1, which is a jump all the way up to the Final Season--I recommend you save that one for later. Just stand in the bookstore and flip through the pages, and if you feel even slightly interested in what you find, buy Vol. 1 of the first series, and if you like that, get Vol. 2, and so forth.
If you don't like those, you'll hate this movie, period at the end.
Myself, being a fan of not only the manga but the card game as well, found it quite enjoyable, but to follow the duels you have to know the rules... hence the need for familiarity with the series behind the movie.
I won't waste time or space blabbing out the plot. I'll just give my verdict. It was closer to the original story of the series than most 4Kids rubbish, but only in the fact that the duel was a Shadow Game that leeched the very life from the players as they lost their points. (The manga games are generally dangerous and many of the early games did not involve the card game at all. In fact, throughout the first seven volumes, the cards only appear in one two-part story nine issues into the series and one two-volume story arc in which four issues are occupied by card dueling and most of the rest by various death-games.) The rest remains true to the English dub only, and the discrepency between the movie and Takahashi's original story become evident at the very beginning, where the completion of the Puzzle is re-written to exclude Ushio (see Vol. 1, issue 1) and include a pack of Duel Monsters card-monsters bursting from the Puzzle to devour Yugi. (Yami Yugi, the Pharoah's spirit contained in the Millennium Puzzle, promptly possesses Yugi and firmly orders the beasts to back off.)
The villain, Anubis, was a paper cut-out. If I were to write this movie into a novelization, I could write Anubis out to be the terrifying, deep baddie he should have been, but in the movie, he's a Joke in a Cape. He has a very vague, shallow history, and there isn't much interesting to tell.
As for the animation... it's somewhat better in the movie than many of the episodes (surprise, surprise--to be expected, actually), but not up to any real movie standards.
The voice actors? Well, Kaiba's improved (as I said), and Pegasus is once again alive in living color... but other than that... well, the English dub is NOT famous for it's voice acting, right? Average at best.
The duels? Well, from one who knows how to follow them, they're pretty good. Granted, if ol' Peggy had summoned Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon and Toon Summoned Skull BEFORE attacking Kaiba, he'd have won, and Kaiba could simply have used the effect of Pegasus's Ultimate Offering card (which works on both players) to bring out his Y-Dragon Head and Z-Metal Tank instead of doing that flashy Return from the Different Dimension combo, but I suppose that plot point had to be set up somehow (Return from the Different Dimension is an important card later on). But overall, good duels, good duels. The pacing was better, less ranting, and the cards aren't those idiotic blown-up parodies 4Kids uses in the television series--they're the real cards on display, just like in the Japanese version of the show. And the life-point counters were the same ones used in the Japanese version, too, a nice touch. There are quite a few little things an uncut fan like myself can appreciate.
My advice: if you're not a Yu-Gi-Oh fan, or else a parent with kids to distract, pretend this movie doesn't exist. If you think Yu-Gi-Oh is just some stupid kiddie show already, read the first seven volumes of the manga, and if that don't disillusion you, nothing on Earth will.
And now, I bid you all, faithful movieviewers, a fond farewell...
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