What makes Yu-Gi-Oh so amazing is that raw Shonen ability to be so much fun and be so inspirational. At the beginning, it is slow but it has charm to it. The dark energy of that first arc is contrasted with fun moments of friendship. In every battle of cruel evil that attacks Yugi and his friends, they come out of it with a stronger bond for overcoming such a strong foe. And the best part is, that never disappears. Redemption and fighting that evil with the help of your friends is a major theme in Yu-Gi-Oh that never feels forced or unearned. When a character chooses to put their faith in someone, it gives them strength to fight, not to give in to other's power. In fact, some duels start off with characters telling their allies to let them fight on their own terms. You could call these moments chessy or chlic but the heart in these moments are too powerful to not get caught up in it.

The many different games that Takahashi creates can be tense but can be so exciting to see how they play out. Something I love in manga volumes is the extras an author puts in their pages. To me, it shows care that goes further beyond the manga. Something like the backstory of Kishimoto's struggle to become a mangaka or the S.B.S. corners in Oda's volumes or the fun little side stories on the blank pages of each chapter in Kubo's work. While it disappears later on in Yu-Gi-Oh, I adore the fun games that Takahashi puts in every page of the first 7 volumes of the manga. I can tell how dearly he loves games because all of them scream fun. I would love to play some of them with friends.

My favourite character has to be Jonouchi. He starts off as a no good bully, who makes fun of the weak, causing tons of pain for Yugi. But then, once he ses that despite what he has done to Yugi, he would still protect him, he becomes kinder to Yugi and becomes a better person. There's one of the games that still sticks me with me. It's where Yugi and Jonouchi have become really good friends at this point, and this thug comes in and hurts Yugi. Jonouchi intervenes and the thug challenges him to a game. They both have to have knives inside their mouths as they fight one another with fists. The thug of course has a fake knife and Jonouchi has the real one. Without batting an eye, he goes in and beats up thte thug, winning the game. It showed to me how much Jonouchi is willing to help his friends. That's the kind of shit I'm weak to. Then once the actual dueling happens, his development with every duel gets better and better. In his first duel, he relies on the other Yugi to help him out and he wins because of this, but later on, he decides he wants to win on his own terms. Not only because of this added sub plot of his sister needing money to heal her eyes, but he wants to be a better duelists, a better person. And every duel is like that, with him learning more and more about the game and getting stronger. Sure, there's some luck here and there, but the amount of luck he needs to win decreases every time to where the last duel we get to see him do is his pure will on display. I won't spoil it here, but that duel is easily one of my top 3 favourite duels in the whole manga. God, I love you Jonouchi.

The most famous part of this manga, besides the card game, is Kaiba and Yugi's rivalry. I would argue it's almost as famous as the rivalry between Goku and Vegeta. Kaiba has this arrogance to him that is so over the top that it goes from goofy to being the coolest thing ever. He has pure confident in his strength, and wants to prove it. But there is a lot of backstory and development he gets that makes him one of the best anti-heroes I've seen. But most importantly, the power that Kaiba and Yugi dueling is incredible. The manga panels turn into a film when they meet, everything flows so well together and not a moment is unused to show how they feel at one another. Every duel they have is memorable and becomes the best part of that arc. The first time they dueled, the chapter that introduced the prototype of this game, was a duel between those two. The second duel where Kaiba kidnaps his father feels like the first big and very well written moment in the manga, and a sign of things to change. The duel in duelist kingdom still plays back in my mind, the full spread of Kaiba staring down Yugi. Then, battle city, oh, the duel in battle city is easily the second best duel in the whole manga. It is a work of manga that I cannot begin to express without showing you the panels. So much depth and character work is beautifully illustrated, and ends with me wanting to see them battle, one last time.

There is nothing like the art in Yu-Gi-Oh. At the beginning, it's a bit amateurish at the beginning.

The dark tense of shadow games and people actually dying at the end of these games is reflect at lot in the art. I would go as far as to say that the story forgets those roots as it goes on. There's a line that Kaiba says in battle city, something like, "Even at my worse, I would never do something like this," in response to a cruel duel and I have to think that Kaiba must have really forgotten that he almost killed Yugi, his friends and his grandpa because he lost in a card game (But you could argue that Kaiba has a different definition of what a cruel duel is). Either way, the art does get better and turns into that iconic style we all know and love. Some page spreads are absolutely stunning, something I didn't expect to see as it goes forward.

You think when you finish the manga that his art can't get better than this, but the illustrations he did in his art book are gorgeous.

Above all else, the paneling is clean and flows perfectly. When the battles are tense, the panels are so sharp you could cut yourself on them. When the joy of friendship is showcased, it's always massive on the page, revealing that heart that lies in that theme. Truly, Takahashi is a master at drawing.

I actually got into this card game a while back. Same with the manga too, because I read a couple years back and decided to buy a starter pack, hoping one day I'll meet someone with a deck. The first time I actually dueled, I placed one monster card down, waited 20 minutes for the other person to finish their turn, only to die right after. Then I played master duel with a friend and it was exactly like that. When you read this manga, you get the sense that the kind of game it is now was never the intent of Takahashi. While the game can be made complex with certain rules you have to get used to, he always puts care to make it feel fun. Because, well, games are meant to be fun between two people. The other person might be more experienced, might go easier on you to get more familiar with the game, but I truly believe that the Yu-Gi-Oh was always meant to be played with friends. To have fun, joke around and get closer to them.

This manga made me respect Takahashi Kazuki deeply. He knows how to make an exciting and enjoyable manga, with exciting panel work and well written characters that will stand the test of time. I can feel the emotions he wanted to give the reader; The ink he draws display a world that he wants everyone to experience, the joy and wonders of friendship and playing games. I am grateful that the card game he has created lives on, and will continue to do so, with new fans like myself getting involved in it. Like the egyptians legacy in our modern times, this too will live on for the ages.