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Yu-Gi-Oh: An animation sensationLatest Japanese import dazzling hundreds of thousands of kids
By Thom Patterson
MARIETTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Inside a game store tucked away in a suburban Atlanta strip mall, there's a war of magic and mayhem going on called Yu-Gi-Oh. About 50 boys -- most age 7 to 14, in T-shirts and shorts -- are seated in folding chairs around rows of dingy folding tables. They have their battle weapons in hand: powerful trading cards with names like Armored Lizard, Big Eye and Time Wizard. Marty and Felix face each other in heated battle. Clutching their cards, they carefully devise their attack strategies. "All right, man, BRING it!" shouts Marty, who proceeds to rattle off a series of numbers as he subtracts from his opponent's so-called Life Points. "I'm dead," says Felix. "Yeah, you're dead." Game over. In just 15 months, trading cards featuring colorful Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh characters have succeeded in captivating hundreds of thousands of the nation's younger set -- kids in elementary and middle school who live and "die" by the game's two-word credo, "Let's duel!" The cards -- which can cost anywhere from about $12 to $25 per pack -- contain so-called Monster Cards, Magic Cards and Trap Cards. Each player begins a duel with 8,000 Life Points. Players can lose points during attacks, and the first player with zero Life Points loses the duel. The math involved in the game draws parental approval. "They're doing math and they don't even know it," says Liz Willen, mother of two Yu-Gi-Oh aficionados, ages 6 and 7, in New York City. "They're just having fun. Plus, they're socializing with each other and not watching TV." Even some adults are getting into the game. "I've got a 40-year-old playing," says Steve Frazier, 30, owner of Colossal Games in Marietta, Georgia. "You've got a lot of dads who play the game. But after a while, they find themselves liking it and not just playing to spend time with their kid. It's got good enough mechanics to keep adults interested." The thrill of the duel
Frazier says he currently sells about 100 packs of the cards on a good day. "I would say -- off and on -- 50 percent of our business now involves Yu-Gi-Oh." The 2,100-square-foot store hosts weekly Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments attended by frantic kids with active imaginations. "Our numbers -- as far as tournaments go -- have gone up," Frazier said. "We had 25 last week. On Saturdays we average 40 to 60. "We're actually thinking about expanding to handle these players." Frazier says there are three reasons for Yu-Gi-Oh's popularity. "First, kids [are] watching the cartoon on TV. Second, the parents have got to accept it -- that's key. And third, the game has to be somewhat good to keep interest high." Like Pokemon, the 1990s cultural icon from Japan, Yu-Gi-Oh characters star in an animated television series (which airs on the WB network) and have created an entire cultural niche full of trading cards, video games, Web sites, books and even music. [WB is owned by the parent company of CNN.com.] But unlike Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh characters are more frightening, more sophisticated, mysterious and more educational. Some of the characters are evil, some good. The luck of the draw is less a part of winning than in Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh requires learning strategy and skills such as reading, math and interaction with other players. Since the cards were introduced in the United States in March 2002, more than 412,000 kids have registered nationwide to play in Yu-Gi-Oh leagues, according to Upper Deck, the cards' North American distributor. More than 1,300 mall tournaments across the nation draw thousands of duelists every week, according to the card maker. Upper Deck says its national dueling tour recently drew an average of 15,000 kids at only 12 different locations. Expanding reach of anime
Yu-Gi-Oh is just the latest example of Japanese animation, called anime, to be accepted by American culture. Mainstreaming of Japanese anime broke out in the 1980s with the U.S. release of a film called Akira, according to Abe Mark Nornes, associate professor in Asian languages and culture at University of Michigan. Nornes says there is no comparison between the two. "Yu-Gi-Oh is incredibly un-artful compared to most anime," Nornes says. "It's dull. It uses limited animation. Yu-Gi-Oh, like Pokemon, is mostly about making money." In fact, the urge to save money has forced Willen to seek out $5 packs of counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh decks in New York's Chinatown. "You get the knock-offs cheap," she says. The cards have been banned at her boys' school. "My son had them taken away for a week for bringing them to school in his backpack," Willen says. "It's completely taking over schools, kids, lives. "Last August, my cousin purchased their first pack, much to the chagrin of my husband, who wants to burn them," Willen continues. "He thinks the cards have no educational potential and that they should be reading or studying instead."
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