First Impression: Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!!

Twins Yuhi and Yuamu Ohdo are elementary school kids who spend their time searching for aliens. They have started their own organization called UTS: Ultraterrestrial Tracker Squad, in the hopes of actually proving to the world that aliens exist. Their motivation? Yuhi says his goal is to challenge an alien to a Rush Duel, which is the newest version of Duel Monsters, a.k.a. the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game. As they search for aliens using equipment that may or may not actually work, they get abducted into an actual alien spaceship! Their alien abductor appears to be a man named Yudias, an alien from the distant Velgearian Star Cluster. Yudias and his people have fled their home and come to Earth in search of a way to save themselves, though from what isn’t entirely clear at this point. When Yuhi challenges Yudias to a Rush Duel, Yudias is surprised because he also knows of Rush Duels, and believes that the key to saving his people may just be a children’s card game. Yudias accepts Yuhi’s challenge, though he knows nothing about how to play the game—his cards are still in their original packs! As they duel, Yuamu explains all of the rules as they go along, serving not only as a tutorial for Yudias, but for the audience as well. Despite knowing nothing about the game prior to starting, Yudias wins by a landslide. But the twins and Yudias realize that their goals are mutually beneficial, and they agree to help each other in the end.

I think it needs to be said that I am a die-hard Yu-Gi-Oh! fan. I’ve been a fan since before the premiere of the original series, when Toys-R-Us sent me a VHS promo in the mail ahead of the US premiere. I watched that promo on repeat anticipating the show and it became something that defined my childhood. I still watch and collect Yu-Gi-Oh! today, and even made myself a custom DVD set of the Japanese release of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters because it isn’t available in the US. Safe to say, I love Yu-Gi-Oh! I also know that Yu-Gi-Oh! as a franchise has been through turmoil in its English releases with the rise and fall of 4Kids Entertainment, later renamed 4K Media Inc, now known as Konomi Cross Media NY. The franchise hasn’t been treated kindly over the years, and Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!! is no exception. The series premiered TWO YEARS AGO in Japan, but has only just now made its way to being released worldwide due to continued mismanagement of the franchise outside of Japan. So, was the wait worth it?

Eh, to be honest, it’s fine. Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!! is an entirely different show than older Yu-Gi-Oh! series, and is 100% a kids’ show. And I don’t mean a kids’ show in the way Yu-Gi-Oh! has always been a kids’ show. I mean, it is designed purely for little kids learning basic addition and subtraction. The anime and even the card game itself have been totally reinvented. Rules are simplified, card spaces are limited from 5 to 3, and you can summon a bunch of monsters on the same turn. Strategy and game theory take a back seat and the dark themes of old are wiped away completely. Gone are the days of people getting their legs cut off with a buzzsaw for losing a duel or fighting against malevolent spirits possessing people in Dark Games. Now we follow elementary school kids who make friends with an alien where the duels have little to no stakes. It’s incredibly safe.

But that’s not a bad thing necessarily. Some of the gags got a chuckle out of me, especially Yudias still having his cards in packs and thinking the cards were ruined when Yuhi opened them up. It’s certainly less compelling narratively, but as a show designed for children, I can see it getting some young kids to want to play the game. Without the stakes and “cool factor” that older series had, Go Rush!! won’t lead to a reignition of the brand, but it will keep it alive for another few years.

All in all, to be honest, I found Go Rush!! far less painful to watch than several of the other Yu-Gi-Oh! animes. I let go a long time ago of hoping that a new Yu-Gi-Oh! would be as good as the older series. So, while it is definitely not for me, a Yu-Gi-Oh! series (and English dub) that isn’t offensive to the senses is about as close to a win as they’ve come in years. If Yu-Gi-Oh! is going to move forward into the future, it needs to stop trying to reinvent itself and remember what it really is. Yu-Gi-Oh! became a worldwide phenomenon that rivaled Pokémon because it was a more mature alternative that challenged the status quo of kids’ anime. Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!! is a perfectly inoffensive show for kids, but it lacks what makes Yu-Gi-Oh! unique.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!! airs on Disney XD on Saturdays at 7am EST/ 6am CST.

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