Problems with the orignal Yu-Gi-Oh! anime

[The Fallen Pony]

As much as I love that original Yu-Gi-Oh!, there are quite a few problems with it. I'm clearly not gonna state all of the problems, but I'll state those that I think plague the show the most. If you find/know any others, please let me know. ^^

1. Every Duel is executed in the same way
Ever since the beginning of the anime, every single Duel is basically the exact same Duel but with different opponents. This gets repetitive and boring after awhile, despite who's Dueling whom and what cards each player is and what cards they're using. Each Duel progress in this exact way:

• Every player Summons a monster or two and/or Sets cards and they're both evenly matched
• The opposing player overpowers the protagonist (Yugi/Atem/Joey) and starts to break they spirit
• The side protagonist characters gives Yugi/Atem/Joey the "believe in yourself," "don't give up," and "we're all with you on this" speeches. And this gets repetitive and boring because it's all the same speech over and over throughout the series
• Yugi/Atem/Joey draws the exact card they they need, disregarding the odds against them
• Yugi/Atem/Joey overpowers and defeats the opponent slortly after

You can tell how boring and predictable the Duels become.
 
2. The "woe is me" & "I had a tragic past" sob backstories
Every enemy the gang faces, except for Weevil, Rex, Bandit Keith, Mai, and a couple others, all have sob backstories and play the victim card (no pun intended) so that want the protagonists and the audience to sympathize and feel sorry for them, regardless of what they did. It's quite pathetic, if you think about. Plus, the explanation of said sob backstories take too much time. XP

3. Useless/Unnecessary characters
There are quite a few characters in the show that have pretty much no purpose in the story whatsoever; they're filler characters and contribute nothing. These include:

• Tristan - He doesn't Duel, he's annoying, he's all talk, and there to be the space-occupier
• Téa - She doesn't Duel, she's annoying, she's all talk, and there to be the girl and space-occupier
• Weevil & Rex - They were just annoying and bad comic relief. So, they're basically the Beavis and Butt-Head of YGO
• Duke - He doesn't Duel and he and Tristan became the comic relief after Joey became better at Dueling, and become horn dogs when Serenity is around
• Serenity - She doesn't Duel, she's annoying, there was no need for her after she had her eye surgery
• Cecelia - She was just in 1 episode for Pegasus' sob backstory and wasn't mentioned or shown again after that
• Mai - She was the eye candy and she always became she arrogant and competitive self in the next story arc after she changed her attitude in the middle of the current arc

4. Different story arcs, same story
Every story arc have the exact same theme but with different enemies and obsessions. I'm not kidding, you can easily predict what'll happen in each arc without even watching 2 episodes. I blame lazy writers that just want to get it into production ASAP (it's all about money, you know). And what's more, barely anything really relates to Atem discovering who he was. Don't get me wrong, they do find clues about 3 times in each arc, but the're not talked about much and the gaps between those clues are too big and it seems like the series didn't really care about Atem's self-discovery at all and spend too much time on repetitive Duels, flashbacks, and talking.

[MiracleGhost47]

As long as the kids like it, the film has fulfilled its purpose. It comes as little surprise to me that the creators lack the motivation to forge something more worthwhile. I certainly wish they would, though.

[TF2_The_Scout]

Wasn't Cecelia important to Pegasus's motivation during Duelist Kingdom?

[Just Crouton]

#1 is why Battle City's duels were so boring.

 

#2 sums up every character in the history of fiction.

 

#3 is a thing in shonen, at least when powercreep happens.

 

#4 sums up the shonen genre Yu-Gi-Oh's part of.

 

#5 Inconsistent art styles

This wouldn't be an issue if most of the different artists didn't suck, and if the last 2 arcs didn't get the worst of the worst.

[The Fallen Pony]

It was her death that caused Pegasus to obsessively search for a way to resurrect her. But my problem with her was that she wasn't given a personalty had only 1 line in the entire sires: "Maximillion! It's really you!"
And, if you haven't noticed, after her only explanation and only appearance in that episode (Aftermath), she wasn't mentioned OR shown again. Sounds like a cop out or lazy writing, if you ask me.

[Astro Dude]

Shouldn't this be in the Anime section?