Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

I might not be your average viewer, since I didn't watch Yu-Gi-Oh as a child and found it by chance later in life through popular Youtube clips. If that sort of comedy suits you, the dub is a ton of fun. Season 3 in particular is full of meta jokes.

You have homages to the Big Lebowski, Goodfellas, the Price is Right, etc. which end up making those episodes hilarious in how over the top they are. There is still a fair share of more serious episodes towards the end.

The characters are mostly solid too. Jaden starts out a bit wide-eyed and not serious, but grows along the way and I could somewhat relate, The Chazz is a fantastic character all around, Bastion is a good comic relief for the time he is there.

Although, you also have all the issues that come with a 4Kids dub. No alcohol, no death, no partial nudity. In some cases, that censorship is really in your face (sake turned to hot sauce).

If someone's a fan of the manga or the Japanese version, I'm guessing they wouldn't be content with all the changes made here.

I had heard mixed things about Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, both from my friends and online. Polls online show that GX or Zexal are consistently on/near the bottom of people's ranking of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series. I have watched the original series and 5D's and liked them both (although I still found the concept of speed duels a bit silly). I was hesitant to watch it, but after being given all the episodes on DVD I couldn't pass it up. To be upfront, this is only a review of series 1-3 as these are the only dubbed episodes.

So, what did I think of it? Well, its a bit of a mixed bag really. The series is canon and starts with a nice nod to the original cast members. It even had occasional appearances of other cast members throughout the series. I liked that idea, since they did acknowledge the original (and best) series without relying on it. The new cast was good, but very very different from the original. Jaden is a very talented duelist with a knack for truancy. This laid back attitude can get quite annoying at times, but what I found more grating was his over-exuberance for the game. He loved duelling a bit too much...The rest of the cast was good too. What I liked about this series is that we got more action from the cast other than the main protagonist compared to the original series. More duels = more variation, which I liked.

It seems that each series has a type of duelling that they like to latch onto and not let go. The original series utilised the same monsters over and over again, whilst 5Ds seemed to love synchro summoning. GX is no different and fusion was the name of the game. It was good since we got to see a wide variation of fusion monsters. However, it did get quite "samey" after a while, since we knew what Jaden was going to do most of the time. The only difference was the "winning move", which was very clever at times. I did also enjoy the new monsters and their use of the old monsters in the original series. The Egyptian Gods were even involved, along with a different version (which are considerably less powerful) that I enjoyed. So, although there were some aspects of duelling that I did not enjoy, there was plenty to be admired.

In terms of the actual storytelling, it is mixed in my opinion. Series 1 is obviously trying to get us used to a new cast and a new concept of a duelling academy. As such, the majority of the plot occurred in the duelling academy and the main storyline was very much internal. It was very good up until the end, which I found to be a bit of an anticlimax. Series 2 was my favourite, because the creators got a bit more...creative. The did so without it being too crazy. I enjoyed the concept of the "light" being evil and having main characters turn evil. It got us to see a different side of them. Series 3 was where it went a bit off. It started out OK, but when the duellists started going inter-dimensional duelling demons and beasts, it was a bit too weird. I just think that they were trying to out-do the previous season, but went a bit too far. It was still enjoyable, but it just seemed a bit confused (and confusing at times).

All in all, this was a Yu-Gi-Oh! series that was worth watching. To be honest, I enjoyed it more than 5Ds (cue the boos!), but that is because I just like the traditional method of duelling. However, nothing will compare to the original series. Its not the nostalgia goggles, I just genuinely believe the story lines and characters in the original series were better.

GX is the best show ever. Much better than the original yugioh. the characters are cool and the school is great. it's like harry potter with duel monsters. to whoever complained about changing the names, you don't know what your talking about! i don't want a guy named "hamotoao" or whatever walking around! i want chumley! nobodys name is judai! the names are great just the way they are. thats what makes the show good! its original! nobody wants the old Japanese version. cartoon network is great for having the guts to make it better. it should go back to being on twice a day. plus, the dueling is much better in gx then in yugioh. the combos are great and i can't wait to buy them. they need to make a movie soon! get your game on!!!!!!!!!

I can't fault them for lack of giving it a good shot. Yu-Gi-Oh GX is another butchering or an anime put out by 4kids, but honestly, this could have been much, much worse. The names weren't too radically changed and was pretty much the only option in some cases (ask anyone to pronounce 'Manjoume'(although I was disappointed to see a character named Cronos go)) and they actually didn't fiddle too much with the base script. Unfortunately, they still wrote out plenty, and the voice acting was, as usual, mostly absurd. But, like I said, it still could have been worse. There are a few places where they use the concept of death, and the writers had the good sport to reference the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged series once or twice, to my surprise. The aforementioned voice acting wasn't all totally bad, and I was a little glad to see they wrote out Cronos' (Crowler's) Italian accent, which annoyed me a little in the original series. The bottom line for it all is, it's pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. I hope 4Kids continues to improve. On a lighter note, if you're a fan of the game(and thus able to get into the show's plot), this is a good show to springboard yourself into anime with.

First class dueling at its best. Cyber dragon beats blue eyes white dragon by a downgrade.