Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
a review by mynameisdoofy
a review by mynameisdoofy
Although the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime began airing on October 6, 2004, the manga would not start its publication in V-Jump until over a year later, running from December 17, 2005 to March 19, 2011 for a total of 64 chapters and 9 volumes. Supervised by the franchise's original creator, Kazuki Takahashi, the manga was written and illustrated entirely by his former assistant, Naoyuki Kageyama. Despite his assistance in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Kageyama was not involved in the creation or production of the GX anime. As such, he makes it clear that the manga is wholly separate from the anime, explicitly stating that "this version [is] very different from the anime," and that "it's better if [readers] look at it as something completely separate" (volume one, page one). He borrows the basic premise of a dueling academy and uses many of the same characters, but how he interprets and develops these characters, as well as the direction in which he takes the story is strikingly different than the anime counterpart. Accordingly, this manga is better thought of as an independent spin-off of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga than an adaptation of the GX anime. For that reason, I will avoid comparisons to the anime where possible. I will, however, make frequent reference to the original manga, highlighting how GX handles the duels, the themes present in the original, and how it stacks up overall.
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX takes place on Duel Academy Island, an institute established by Seto Kaiba for prospective duelists to learn the ins-and-outs of both the card game and pro scene. Students are given a rank according to their performance on a series of theoretical and practical exams, and are expected to 'rank up' over their tenure at the academy before eventually gradating and (ideally) entering the pro scene. Although the idea of a 'dueling school' has been the subject of much ridicule, it helps better situate the role of duel monsters within the world of the series. A good way of understanding this is by means of a real-world parallel, namely, eSports. While there is no 'gamer school' in the way GX has duel academy, they have both carved out their specific niches within their respective cultures: both are generally well-known by the masses, even if the majority do not compete in them, and there is a dedicated demographic of people whose lives are centered around them. The benefit of this set-up is that it requires much less suspension of one's beliefs to understand why duel monsters is so important the characters in the manga despite being set in an otherwise ordinary(-ish) world. In this way, I would argue that GX surpasses the original manga in this respect, as the original manga asks a lot of the reader in terms of suspending their beliefs: after all, the fate of the world being determined by the outcome of two middle-school students, possessed by the spirits of ancient Egypt, playing a children's card game can be a bit difficult to digest at first, but students enrolling in a school to professionally compete in a niche competition is not so much.
While GX begins with a strong premise that helps ease readers into the world its presenting, the execution of the first chapter is riddled with problems that will continue to plague the series as a whole. For one, GX has major pacing issues. In the opening pages of chapter one alone, the reader is presented with (1) Jaden defeating some random opponent and being congratulated by Syrus; (2) a brief, unrelated exchange between Jaden and Alexis; (3) Syrus being defeated by a prospective instructor, Mr. Ryuga; and (4) Jaden talking to Syrus after the match. Four interactions, two duels, across four different locations – all within the span of five pages. Because of how little screen-time each interaction is given, they come across as hollow, as if they are doing the most generic thing just to move the plot along. This issue crops up regularly and can make a lot of the dialogue feel stock and boring. Related to this is a second major issue: that a significant amount of the dueling happens off-screen. Not only are the two opening duels only given a page each, but the final duel of the opening chapter – the climax – starts in the middle of the fifth turn. What makes this issue particularly pressing is that GX is a manga that especially focuses on dueling, more so than even Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist. Given that, one would expect the manga to slowly build up the duels, carefully creating the momentum necessary to engage readers and deliver a huge climax, but this is often not the case. To make matters worse, this problem is not only limited to less important duels between one-off characters, but extends to major duels between main characters. In chapter eight, for example, Jaden and Syrus are forced into a high stakes duel, where, if Syrus loses, he is expelled from the academy, and if Jaden loses, his deck is confiscated. Surely something of this magnitude would be treated with the upmost care, right? Wrong. Not only does the duel start half-way through, but the chapter begins with the two dueling before any context is given as to why. This in media res approach simply does not work for this style of manga because a duel can only deliver on its excitement if the action is slowly built up, and so thrusting readers into the middle of the action is an inefficient means of creating intrigue. Further, the whole point of starting in medias res is to promise the reader that there is plenty of excitement to come, often because a slower start is necessary to set it up, but given GX's breakneck pacing, there is no reason Kageyama could not have simply built up to the duel after just a few pages.
There is no questioning the overall rockiness of GX's opening chapters, but there are certain aspects that are either improved upon or utilized to create more opportunities for genuinely enjoyable moments. The first aspect is that by the fourth volume (chapter 27 onwards), the manga switches from 21-pages to 31-pages. This may seem like a minor change, but by giving Kageyama more space, he no longer has to resort to starting duels halfway through and can use the extra space to show the duel in its entirety. This suggests that the earlier issues were the result of the limitations surrounding the manga's publication, something completely out of his hands. While there may have been alternative ways of dealing with the previous page limit, and so, Kageyama does not totally escape the previous criticism, one can see that having more pages simply dissolves this issue entirely. The second aspect is that Kageyama's heavy focus on dueling translates into more dynamic and complex duels than anything in the original manga. Just like in Battle City, GX's duels are set within an established ruleset, but with more improved rules to help bring the card game in line with the real life TCG (for example, fusion and tribute monsters can now attack the turn they are summoned, which was not the case previously). While this type of dueling is still subject to same criticisms as Battle City – namely, battles often feel determined by luck (for example, drawing the right card at the right time) as opposed to the duelist's own merit (see my review of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! for more details) – it at least offers higher quality and more exciting duels than ever before.
The other aspect which works to GX's advantage is the nature of its protagonist, Jaden. In the original series, Yugi is presented as 'the good guy who always triumphs over evil.' The consequence of this is that in most of his duels, the reader expects him to win. The problem, then, (especially in Battle City), was that some of these victories did not feel justified: they were not a result of his own autonomy but of luck, which can feel cheap and undeserving. This, however, is not the case in GX. Although the manga actively choses to begin with a scene of Jaden winning, invoking the memory of the undefeatable Yugi, GX quickly subverts this expectation by having Jaden lose several important duels. Not only does this come as a shock to the reader, but it fundamentally changes how they perceive the duels: no longer will they expect Jaden to simply steamroll every opponent because he is the protagonist. Moreover, because of the large cast of exceptionally strong duelists, Jaden does not always play the role of 'the hero who saves the day.' These two features humble Jaden in a way that allows duels to be unpredictable, which helps keep the reader engaged.
Among the original Yu-Gi-Oh! trilogy, GX is best known for its characters, and more specifically, Jaden's development across the four seasons. Given that, the question naturally arises, how does the GX manga fair in light of this? Well, much like its anime counterpart, Jaden is given a fair amount of development. Early on, the manga establishes that Jaden's deck is valuable to him, and in volume two, readers find out why: it was a 'dying' gift from a mentor-like figure from his past, Koyo Hibiki. This backstory was actually fairly moving and casts Jaden in a whole new light. Unlike his journey in the anime, manga Jaden is principally concerned with establishing his own identity. For the first half of the manga, he essentially wants to be Koyo, but by the second half, he comes into his own identity, which is beautifully represented by him putting aside the deck given to him by Koyo and using his own cards. This journey of self-discovery has an incredible conclusion, which perfectly wraps up the manga as a whole. Now, while I have nothing but praise for Jaden's character arc in the manga, my praise ends with him. The manga is unfortunately bloated with characters that are given little to no background and have zero personality; the most the reader will remember about the majority of the cast is the type of deck they play, as it is only when dueling that any of these characters distinguish themselves from one another in any meaningful way. Perhaps the worst example of this are with the five American duelists introduced in the second half. They exist solely to provide the main cast with the opportunity to face 'strong duelists' in a tournament setting. At the very least, the duels are generally well done, with a lot of dynamic action, complex back-and-forthes, and unique new monsters.
The final aspect I must discuss is the antagonist. Recall that one of GX's greatest virtues is how it situates duel monsters within the world of the series. While I maintain that this is still generally positive, it does work against itself in the latter half, and this has to do with Kageyama's attempt at introducing a supernatural element into the manga. It is important to note that the events of the manga are entirely motivated by the antagonist, a spirit from ancient Egypt trying to resurrect itself, who is drawn to Duel Academy out of a necessity to complete the resurrection. While the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise is no stranger to ancient Egyptian antagonists, the problem in GX is that it is set in an otherwise ordinary world, so the first few mentions of Shadow Games can break the readers' immersion and come off as jarring. This could be forgiven if the antagonist was executed well enough to justify this shift in tone, but unfortunately, that is not the case. Readers are given a couple pages worth of backstory in the first half, but otherwise, the antagonist does not make any significant appearances until the last two volumes: he was the evil spirit of a criminal in ancient Egypt who was sealed into a stone tablet, which was then destroyed. Some 3000 years later, said spirit somehow – unbeknownst to the reader – gains control of the American Duel Academy and uses its students in an attempt to resurrect itself. Not a particularly unique backstory as far as Yu-Gi-Oh! is concerned, but what absolutely ruins any semblance of intrigue around this character is shattered in the final volume. In order to demonstrate why, I must go into spoilers, so feel free to avoid the following section if you want to remain unspoiled.
In short, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is – at best – a series of semi-interesting duels with a well-written protagonist strung together by a horrible ancient Egyptian sub-plot, and at worst, a shallow attempt at continuing the duel monsters legacy that we could otherwise do without. As a Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, I am willing to extend the series some charity and focus on the good more than the bad, but giving this series anything higher than a 7/10 would be unreasonably generous.
22.5 out of 24 users liked this review
