We're all familiar with
competing programs, aren't we? It seems whenever a show is
popular for doing one
thing, there's always another that shares many similarities with it,
and
comes out around the same
time; in an attempt to cash in on it. Nowhere is that more prevalent
than in anime. When Pokémon
came out, Digimon was not far behind. Cowboy Bebop Vs.
Outlaw Star debates are
always popular for Toonami/early Adult Swim viewers. Death Note
vs. Code Geass is a
currently ongoing cycle. It can get so generalized among similar
anime
that it's down to Yu-Gi-Oh
Zexal Vs. Cardfight Vanguard. Even so, competing anime based on
trading card games is
nothing now.
No, it stretches back to
the past decade. About 2004, when the original Yu-Gi-Oh was
at the height of its
popularity; Wizards of the Coast responded by bringing over another
card
game and anime. This was
known as Duel Masters.
Yes, I am well aware that
a fair number of people like this show. As I explained in my
Bakugan and Monsuno recaps,
I have no problem with the game. It is the anime that I find
unsupportable. Why? Like
many other series at the time, it partakes in a controversial
practice
called the gag dub. This is
where the writers of the dub of an anime try to adapt the story
and make it suitable for
American audiences by playing its concept for laughs. If done
correctly;
it can be entertaining as
well as respectful to its source material. However, if done
incorrectly;
the result becomes
absolutely painful to endure.
Again, a fair number of
people say the gag dub was well-done, that playing the concept
of competitive trading card
games for laughs worked in the show's favor. I apologize for the
following statement: you
were looking back at this show through rose-tinted glasses. Duel
Masters is not a good
example of the gag dub, nor is it a good anime. It's not
well-written, it's
it's not well-animated,
it's a disjointed, hopeless mess of an anime. Anyone who claimed they
liked this is deluding
themselves. As you will see, you have let your memories mislead you.
Let's start, as with any
series like this, with the first episode.
We open on a boy sorting
through some trading cards. We hear him narrating about how
card games can be a
life-changing experience. Well, that didn't take long. Twenty-eight
seconds in, and we've
already jumped the shark.
We get an incredibly bad CGI
effect, and we immediately transition to our theme song.
It is a garbled mix of
techno and thrash metal. I can't understand what the Hell the singer
is saying. All I can make out of the lyrics are shouts of “Duel
Masters” and “Shobu.” Now I remember why I always took a walk
while my brother watched this. We get our logo, and
the title of the episode
beneath it, “Playing With A Full Deck.” As I go along, they're
not even
close in that department.
We see this Shobu they were
shouting in the opening, as he gets all giddy about his card
games. That's impressive. I
hate you already!
We get another boy saying
that Shobu needs to hurry if he wants to make the tournament.
Well, thank you, Pidge. Why
don't you go ride your Green Lion?
A girl comes up to the boy,
and it is quite the awkward stance he's in. Take a good look,
kid. That's as close as
you'll ever get to a woman.
So they head to the
tournament, and-DAH! Get out of my personal space, Shogi! Sorry.
They head to the tournament
as we see their friend-Mario? We find out that the little boy's
name is Kouta. I think
ShoPro will be easier to make fun of for his name.
 |
| GAH! What did I tell you about personal space, Showa? |
As they head to the
tournament, we see someone following them in a red sports car.
That's not conspicuous at
all! Why not try following them in a black van?
So, Big Show arrives at the
tournament and is already doing incredibly well. I also
take note of the '90s music
video editing. The Megazord fights on Power Rangers Turbo
weren't this jaggy!
It turns out the opponent's
name is Kenny. Oh my God! they killed Kenny! You bastards.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Also, this is the second recap in which the characters look like my
attempts at doodling manga.
I know anime is usually done on the cheap, but come on!
As the card games continue,
the Gorillaz here look in on Showboat. The announcers
remark that Kenny is in a
pickle, then proceed to hock a brand of pickles. Wow. That's
money- grubbing and unfunny. It's like an anime Irate Gamer.
So we see more of the
gameplay, and the players appear to be throwing their cards.
What? This isn't 52-pickup,
this is a TCG. There are rules.
After a bit with the weird
man, it turns out that Shogun is going to fight the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Card Sharks.
The one representing them is Shinoji. Shinoji is ostensibly a boy,
despite the fact that “he”
is wearing a yellow blouse, has long hair, a feminine face; which
does little to offset his
voice, which seems to have been cultivated on a diet of sandpaper and
broken glass. He makes
Tamaki Suoh look masculine.
They start their match, and
I have no idea why the gameplay involves throwing the cards
around. The collectors will
have their heads.
Shinoji's cronies go after
Kouta and the girl, and the one with the bubble gum in his mouth has
the bubble move when he talks. And I thought Koenma talking
coherently when
he never took out his
pacifier was weird.
Back at the match, they
still feel a need to abuse their cards when they play. Then,
Shoobie summons a giant
tornado to attack Shinoji.
 |
| Auntie Em! Uncle Henry! |
Showgirl is taking a beating
for about 2 minutes, until he finally gets the drive to make
his counterattack.
 |
| OWWWW! MY HAND IS ON FIRE! GET ME A BUCKET OF WATER! I'M IN EXCRUCIATING PAIN! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! |
I also point out that I've
given up trying to follow the mechanics of this game. I'm just
enjoying the pictures. This
episode has been going on for 7 minutes, and I don't care whether
Shinoji or Cinema Paridiso
wins.
Even so, after a duel that
took 6 minutes out of 8, Last Picture Show won the tournament.
That's a bigger joke than
the actual jokes.
The man from before
approaches the children. Okay, didn't anyone tell Rocky Horror
Picture Show about stranger
danger? He even looks like a guy you're told to run from in first
grade! You know, black
trench coat, sunglasses, asking you to come with him?
The man says his name is
Knife. Now you know why I won't call Shogakukan by his
real name.
Now, you'll have to bear
with me. I don't know whether the copy I used for this recap had
bad audio, but I can't make
out what Knife is saying at all. If you have watched the episode,
please let me know what
he's saying. His speech pattern is so muffled that I may have to
run his dialogue through
Babel Fish.
On top of his indistinct
tone, Knife also is whispering throughout his talk with the
children. I can't tell if he's asking them about a “Real Duel”
or “Rio Do.” What I got out of
his next lines was “a
difference between Dockers and reel dubbing.” What?
Seriously, Knife gets
harder to understand with each passing scene. I heard what he said
as “a cucumber flesher.”
He's even harder to understand than Jean Claude Van Damme, who
earned laughs from my
family on movie night; when we watched “Street Fighter” and had
him
ask for a “wake-a-car.”
Anyhow, Soul Food asks him a question about dueling.
Knife replies, but I can't
tell if he said “be there tomorrow afternoon” or “beat your
hair
with mooring till noon.”
I also don't know if he added “bring your best game” or “wring
your
breast cane.”
I feel like the last three
minutes were spent talking to a guy whose jaw muscles were frozen. I
didn't get a word of what he said. He goes on to say-”you could be
better” or “you
could beat batter?” Knife
then ends with “you underscored your screed,” I think.
TALK! A LITTLE! LOUDER!
So, they go to the meeting
place the following day. Hopefully Knife got the peanut butter out
of his mouth. The girl, whose name I may have blacked out in the
midst of our car trouble;
remarks that she didn't
think the place was so big. I didn't think it was this unkempt. I've
seen
apartment buildings with
less moss!
 |
| Welcome to Duel Academy. What are you wearing? |
The children encounter
Knife. Knife, could you talk a little louder, please? Kouta
points out a Kaijudo trophy
from Stockholm, Sweden. Somewhere, Alfred Nobel is crying.
Kouta sees another from
Belize, Brazil. I only wish this show were a hallucination of my
broken mind.
The way Kouta's voice actor
reads his lines-whoever it is, they're horribly miscast.
It sounds like Fran
Drescher if she were gargling Neelix.
Knife once again speaks.
“Sashimi is ready?” No thanks, I'm a beef bowl guy. Showroom
then says he's going to
“own the zone.” That's what you get when 30-something dub writers
try to sound hip. That same
reasoning produced “feeling the flow.”
Kouta then insinuates that
Knife is trying to “psych you out.” This aired in 2004. People
had not said that for ten
years at that point. It sounds even dumber now that people haven't
said it for eighteen years.
Knife then says some of
the few intelligible lines he's been given. “Shuffle my cards.
I hear you're really good
with swift attacks.” “Shuffle my cards?” “I hear you're
really good
with swift attacks?” If I
just heard these lines out of context, I'd think they came from a
hentai
about card games.
 |
| I got one hand on fire, and the other one is drinking a Pepsi! |
Then, the other big card
game of the show begins in the most needlessly dramatic fashion
imaginable.
Despite Floor Show freaking
out, he rises to the challenge. How droll. How very droll.
 |
| CARD-MAN! And the Masters of the Stodgy Gag Dubs! |
Here we see editing at its
worst, as the visuals of this card game have excessive use
of that shine-through
effect that comes with most editions of Windows Movie Maker. On top
of that, there are
laughable special effects as more of the monsters are summoned.
 |
| Just because you can use CGI, doesn't mean you should. |
These monsters have very little texture mapping, and
their colors are murky as the small swamps in my neighborhood. The kind that will suck
your shoe off your foot.
 |
| OK, now you're making Dinosaur King look realistic! Can you put a little more effort into this CGI, guys?! |
Knife then tells Shota to
play from his heart, and he doesn't have to beat him to win.
No wonder Yu-Gi-Oh is
fondly remembered while people are ashamed of this.
As the duel continues, I
must admit I don't really know what I'm looking at. It borders
on the avant-garde. It
reminds me of one of those Sprite Sublymonal advertisements
So, Minoru Shiraishi says
he's not giving up and he's going to “own the zone,” despite
being shaken by Knife's incomprehensible comments. Word of advice,
writers: when you're
trying to have a serious
moment, it's best to avoid phrases like “own the zone.” It tends
to
be a moment killer.
Another complaint: The
pacing is horrendous. I mean, we have a tournament done in
6 minutes, and an
existential crisis in 3 minutes. Sosuke Sagara remarks that he
doesn't have
enough cards to beat Knife.
More cards. Must buy more cards.
We then get a flashback
with his dad, and yes, that's really what he looks like. Jango
Fett didn't have this big a
resemblance!
He then says that it doesn't
matter what happens. That you just need to try your best.
Also, don't do drugs, bathe
regularly, and keep your town clean. He has a lot of stock life
lessons.
 |
| By the Power of Grayskull... I HAVE THE POWER! |
We then see his best
monster. …
(pfft) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA! I'm sorry, it's just that MetalGreymon's drawings looked
more three-dimensional!
Knife counters with a
helicopter dinosaur with a lot of firepower. I think it's time to
We get some glass
shattering, and it's a horrible effect. The Loc-Nar destroying that
girl's house was more
convincing. Additionally, ShoTua is making a constipated face. If you
have to poop, take off your
pants first.
Even so, he still loses.
People say Ash Ketchum is bad at handling losses? This guy
slips into clinical
depression!
 |
| I lost a card game! I no longer have reason to live! |
Then, when he gets home, his
mom lists off a bunch of chores for him to do. Not the
worst ending, but it's
astutely depressing for what's supposed to be a gag dub anime.
Wow, this was a hard one.
It came very close to breaking me, and it's the first time
that I've felt genuinely
ashamed of watching something for this blog.
“Playing With a Full
Deck” is anything but. I cannot imagine how people actually
enjoyed this anime. The voice acting is among the worst I've ever
heard in a dub, ranging from
a grating voice to an
unintelligible mumbler (if you know what Knife was saying, please
tell
me in the comments). The
animation is so horrible that it's a wonder it actually got picked up
by Cartoon Network.
Everything from the way the characters move to the poor background
design to the Third World
special effects is blatantly straight-to-DVD. As a gag dub, it fails
due to the poor quality of
the writing and execution. If they went for something more along
the lines of Yu-Gi-Oh: The
Abridged Series; it would have worked. Instead, there are stupid
and nonsensical jokes as
well as a complete lack of fun that just makes the series hopelessly
bleak. It is truly
remarkable in how bad it is. I am going to go play my new copy of
Pokémon
Conquest and watch some
Ichigo Mashimaro before I completely lose hope.
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