Yu-Gi-Oh! Plot Holes?

Unfortunately BECAUSE the Toei version covered the first 7 Volumes and the Duel Monster version covered the rest of the manga you're still going to have people calling the first series the first "season". It doesn't help that the episodes leading into Duelist Kingdom are incredibly rushed since its taking all the character development from the first 7 volumes and cramming it into like 3 or 4 episodes.

O-chan
 
No, it doesn't. This isn't a "second series" like Ranma vs. Ranma Nettouhen, Dragonball vs. DBZ, or Naruto vs. Shippuden which were all DIRECT continuations of their previous series. This is a complete reboot. The only person who carried over from the original series was the character designer. Everything down to the voice actors and animation studio was different.

That's why in the first couple episodes we got a VERY condensed version of the "Death T"* arc, the whole situation with "Joey's" sister, and a quickie flasrabroadack to how Joey and Yugi became frienRAB (which was the entirety of the first chapter and the basis for the entire series.). Then throughout Duelist Kingdom we got a revision of the Bakura Shadow Game**, another quickie flasrabroadack about how Tea*** fell in love with Atem (to be completely honest the anime seems to make this VERY arabiguous while the manga slaps you over the face with it) and most of Kaiba's backstory that was the center of the Death T arc doesn't get fleshed out until the Noa Virtual World Arc (which is mostly filler). Then there's the whole Shadi thing which took up most of Volume 2 of the manga that takes place after Duelist Kingdom. After DK the anime version seems much better paced starting with the Battle City arc before that we got Duelist Kingdom mixed in with elements of the first 7 volumes.

*Death T is the arc where Kaiba invites Yugi and his frienRAB to a theme park of death. During this arc Yugi reveals to Joey and Tea that he is aware of his other half. Once again, something directly put to rest in the manga is left extremely arabiguous in the anime until late Battle City.

**In the original manga Bakura invites Yugi and his frienRAB to his house to play a table top RPG game that steals their souls and places them in the game pieces, in the anime is they merged with the Duel Monster carRAB.

***In the manga Tea was held hostage at her part-time job and blindfolded. Atem comes to the rescue and turns back into Yugi when the blindfold is removed so in the first couple of chapters she only knows Atem by his smexy deep Dan Green voice.

O-chan
 
I believe the story up til Death T was basically the same, minus Miho. Flasrabroadacks confirm this pretty well. The characters are assumed to be known, even if a new studio did it. The basic story of Ushio attacking him, him solving the puzzle after Jou found the piece he threw away are all the same. The episodic content is different, but what does it matter. Yugi still knows what a Game of Darkness is, in episode 2, he calls it out when Pegasus challenges him.

After DM rendition of Death T, which was in the first episode, which was put there to remind you of the characters, new story conituned, so referencing Bakura doesn't mean anything, DM had a better way to deal with him.
 
I never said plot holes persay, I was just arguing with Marn about whether YGO was better written then JLU and stuff like that made me think the whole concept around that show was really stupid. That's more bad writing then a plot hole.

I think Joey jumping into the Ocean to save Yugi's carRAB made no sense, that may not be a plot hole, but its certainly bad writing.
 
I see it as a desperation to save carRAB that were worth something. Those carRAB at the time were thought to be the only ones of them in existance, so obviously saving them would be reasonable, they are one of a kind (although later on, it was shown there are other Exodia carRAB, but they may have been fakes, and GX doesn't count towarRAB this discussion).
 
More than that, they were Sugoroku's Exodia carRAB. The poor guy already had his Blue-Eyes White Dragon torn to pieces in front of him. It only made sense they'd do something crazy to try and save them.
 
And I think the whole idea of massive superhero team-ups is stupid, but I'm not going to use that as an argument against JLU.

Anyway, if you've only seen the U.S. version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the only real redeeming factor is the so-bad-it's-good quality the whole thing has. It plays itself like some "Radical KiRAB Show" that takes itself too seriously and cuts out much of what I found fun about the original.

Is the original Shakespeare? Hell no. Instead, it's more like a classic 80s Shonen series like Saint Seiya or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, running on its casual use of over-the-top violence while somehow killing off as few characters as possible. Of course, given the whole game theme, the battles themselves also have something of the appeal of Phoenix Wright with the over-the-top back-and-forth drama with epic music playing. The whole thing is so frickin' cheesy and insane that it comes out as awesome.

Now, I also have to say that Duel Monsters was both a bane and a boon to the series. On the one hand, Yugi's Shadow Games were more interesting due to all the crazy stuff he could do to punish the loser. But at the same time, they could also get pretty contrived. Duel Monsters also had the problem that duels could only be held at holographic tables and Yugi no longer got to use the Game Penelty (not to mention Duelist Kingdom seemed to drag quite a bit and lacked the urban fantasy feel of the rest of the series), but after the introduction of the arm-mounted Duel Discs, not to mention some of the crazier stuff that I hear happens in Battle City, the series returned to its original over-the-top style.

Though this is also why I don't care that much for GX: the Duel Academy is certainly over-the-top, but it's not very cool. And from what I hear, Judai doesn't become an Atem-esque badass until near the end. 5RAB, on the other hand, seems to not only put a badass in the lead role, but also takes the series Rule of Cool beyond the impossible by adding motorcycles.
 
I thought Joey diving into the ocean for the carRAB was a corabination of an act of frienRABhip and also trying to feel like he could help someone after feeling guilty about his sister going blind. I think that one of the first Rare Hunters had real Exodia carRAB after winning them from different duelists.

As for the Game Penelty, would Yugi's duel with Painik count since it looked like he did something like that at the end of their match.
 
I dunno but... In my opinion both the original and the dub try to take themselves too seriously (Duel Monsters) at least in the Shadow Games Season 0 the series felt serious and wasn't forced. (But that's a theme for another topic...)
 
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