Pokemon's successor?

[robert]

By KAREN KAPLAN and MARK MAGNIER - Los Angeles Times
Date: 05/19/01 22:36

TOKYO -- Two years after Pokemon swept across America -- inundating homes with Pikachus and ensnaring children with a seemingly endless supply of trading cards -- the next Japanese craze is coming.

It's Yu-Gi-Oh, and if its rise in Japan is any guide, it could soon be sparking riots, lawsuits and financial crises in America, too.

"Hold on to your wallets," said Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles child psychologist whose 16-year-old son, Anton, has collected more than $650 worth of Pokemon paraphernalia.

In the last three years Yu-Gi-Oh Duelmonsters cards and video games have taken Japan by storm in a mania rivaling some of the weirdest episodes from the Pokemon fad.

A Yu-Gi-Oh tournament two years ago in Tokyo drew 55,000 children and parents -- 15,000 more than expected -- all clamoring to buy packs of limited-edition cards. They mobbed gates, surrounded the stadium and forced Konami Co., the Japanese company behind the game, to call in riot police. At least two persons were injured, and dozens more were treated in stadium clinics.

The parents of an elementary school pupil sued this month in a Tokyo district court, asking for $80,000 from another boy's family after their son was threatened and robbed of more than 400 Yu-Gi-Oh cards last year.

The game is still a few months away from showing up in American stores. The Yu-Gi-Oh video game is expected to be available in time for Christmas shoppers, and the usual tsunami of T-shirts, game cards, lunch boxes and other gear will follow early next year.

The chances of any game matching the phenomenal success of Pokemon, which generated about $4.5 billion in U.S. sales of card and video games, are considered small. But industry watchers say Yu-Gi-Oh, with its multimedia assault of cartoons, video games, cards and kid gear, stands the best chance yet of re-creating Pokemon mania.

Some American parents who helped finance Pokemon's success, such as Mike Montalbano of New Milford, N.J., are bracing for the worst.

Montalbano, a factory equipment salesman and father of two young Pokemon fanatics, said Yu-Gi-Oh would never get into his house.

"We spent all this money on cards for Pokemon, and I don't want to start all over again," he said.

That sentiment, of course, is what generations of parents around the world have sworn -- and recanted -- about everything from BB guns to Barbie dolls.

Yu-Gi-Oh, which roughly translates into "Game King," began five years ago as a humble comic strip in a Japanese magazine called Shonen Jump. It has since grown into an all-encompassing way of life.

More than 3.5 billion Yu-Gi-Oh cards are in circulation in Japan, along with 7 million video games, according to Konami. Yu-Gi-Oh cartoons are broadcast weekly on television, fueling sales of clothing, toys and other themed merchandise -- some of which has already begun appearing on the online auction site eBay.

Konami has introduced 3,000 types of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and Japanese collectors are gobbling them up at $1.25 for a pack of five cards.

Takafumi Tanaka, owner of Hobby Shop Takarabako in Yokohama, says many of his young customers buy entire 30-packet boxes at $37, hoping to acquire rare and highly prized cards. A super-rare "Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon" card presented to the winner of a national championship sold on Yahoo Japan's auction site for $30,900.

Daisuke Inoue, a 9-year-old from Shimane prefecture on the Japan Sea, said he used to play Pokemon, in which players try to capture scores of cutesy "pocket monsters." Now he and his friends have moved on to Yu-Gi-Oh, whose monsters are darker and require more strategy to tame.

"It's just more fun, more cool," he said.

The Yu-Gi-Oh comic strip revolves around a schoolboy named Yugi, who began playing a card game a few months after the strip was launched in 1996. In the story, one of Yugi's classmates becomes so obsessed with the game that he kidnaps Yugi's grandfather to steal a rare card in his collection.

After Yugi faced off against his classmate to save his grandfather, readers of the comic strip begged the magazine for the game. The first game cards hit the market in 1998 -- and the conflicts began soon after.

In Japan, Inoue is one of many children who have been battling their parents over the seemingly endless expenditures on Yu-Gi-Oh.

"My mother won't let me buy any more cards with my own money," he said. "I have $80 I got as a New Year's gift, but she told me, `No Yu-Gi-Oh.' "

[James Harvey]

Not only that, YU-GI-OH has been bought by 4KIDS for Amrican distribution. Word of mouth says that KWB may place it as a midseason replacement of psring premiere.

[The Mad Hatter]

Erf. I saw this at E3, and Konami more or less promised that they plan to blanket the earth in Yu-Gi-Oh crap. You've been warned.

[RockItShipper]

Yugi Oh, from what I've heard, has surpassed Pokemon in the TCG arena. But on the other hand, the Pokemon card craze in the US seemed to be more about the cute creatures than the actual game. I didn't pick up on playing the actual game until after a summer of playing the Gameboy TCG. Pokemon's 4th theatrical release is due this summer in Japan whereas Y-O! has some direct to video releases but that's about it.

Anyway, I have four episodes of Yugi-Oh on video (the last 2 aired in March and the first 2 shown in April)... So far I've only brought myself to watch 2 of them... The high point so far was a trio of cheerleaders, two cute girls and what looked to be a fat male. It seemed they were rooting for Yugi's opponent, a goth version of "The Astounding Mandy" who mentioned having recieved the hospitality of someone called "Crystal King" or something to that effect. And the cheerleaders were beating up on Yugi's yaoi? buddy who was dressed up in a dog costume. The match had started in a previous episode, carried through the ones I saw... Slooooooooow but no one like the Rockets to liven the proceedings. Except for the commercials. McDonalds Happy Setto and its March Dalmatians promotion among them... I'll post more when I see it...

[James Harvey]

And if KWB gets it, expect to see it on twice a weekday, and twice a weekend. Man, I can already see the YuGiOh commercials....

[Sharklady]

*Oh no!*

Once around that block was *quite* enough for me.

[Anthonynotes]

"Yu-Gi-Oh"?!? It sounds more like a second-rate car from an Eastern European country than a game/comic strip...

Either way, between Hatter's suggestion that "they vill bury us" (to paraphrase Kruschev) with mass quantities of merchandise of this, and the show's description/being a midseason replacement for KWB, I'll stand by Sharklady's sentiment that I don't want to go around this trip again, even if I barely know what it *is*...

As for possible KWB promos, I guess I'd better start making up some parody names in order to pointlessly and irreverently deride this thing (assuming "Yu-Gi-Oh" will be what this is called here in the States, unless it gets an Americanized name).... "You-Go-Girl"? "Your-Gee-Oh"? Hmm...might take awhile :-)

-B.
Won't even bother making up a bogus promo suggestion: you all know the KWB-promo-drill by now :-)

[RockItShipper]

I think an Americanized name is more likely to be the case.

Cardcaptor Sakura's dub is known as Cardcaptors to appeal more to boys... Pocket Monsters was renamed Pokemon for NA audiences, mainly because of a then-competing property known as "Monster in My Pocket"... Digimon Adventure and DA02 = Digimon: Digital Monsters- heard the same thing's going to happen with Digimon Tamers but the fact is that I'll have the first 16 eps by the time it starts on Fox Kids so I could care less.

[James Harvey]

But what could they rename it? Yugi? (Hmmm...to close to Yogi...)

[The Mad Hatter]

Hmmm... well, at E3 they simply called it Yugioh. Of course, they could change it from there... but since they were trying to make an impression on hordes of journalists and vendors, I get the feeling that might actually be the final American name.

[RockItShipper]

The long-drawn out duel between Yugi and his goth opponent
O-tog-ii (not sure how to properly spell it, but this is what Yugi addressed him with at the end, along with the "-kun" honorific) finally wrapped up. Finally! It really dragged on too long. Otogi was cocky, briefly unnerved whenever Yugi made some headway and ultimately defeated. Otogi's arsenal in this ep included a skull-headed creature who got into a "Monster Cannon"(i.e. a cannon strapped on the back of a beast. Yugi's victory owed a great deal to two people. First, a creature called "Black Magic" that got into a magic box with the old sword trick and reappeared in a box right in front of Otogi. Since Otogi's box had been attacked twice before, this third attack resulted in Yugi's victory. But Yugi's confidence was kept up not by his close buddies who resemble the Gymshippers on Pokemon, but by his friend???? in the dog suit. That had to be the cutest part of this episode. It's love! New theme song and ending number, as those seem to be an April norm in Japan... And the Happy Setto promotion at McDonalds that month was for Disney's California Adventure.

[RockItShipper]

Somehow got myself to sit through the last ep on the tape during breakfast. This particular episode showed just how intelligent Yugi is. I'd elaborate but it doesn't seem anyone wants to hear it. Personally, Yugi Oh's nowhere on my must buy list. Perhaps a future rental- very distant future.