Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal

TV (73 eps)
2011 - 2012
Spring 2011
3.062 out of 5 from 2,718 votes
Rank #14,714

Yuma Tsukumo is perhaps the worst Duel Monsters player of all time, but that never stopped him from challenging anyone and anything that could shuffle a deck. When a strange dream leads him to unlock an inter-dimensional gateway, Yuma finds himself connected to a mysterious being named Astral who suffers from amnesia. He wasn't the only thing to come through the gate though, for the powerful Numbers cards have been unleashed into the world, each containing a fragment of Astral's memory. With Astral as his guide, Yuma must defeat those who posses the Numbers and reclaim them in battles where defeat means death for his new partner.

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Reviews

Fishy116
2

There are no spoilers in this review. Story: The story for Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal is sadly lacking. The once great story of the original has yet to be followed up wth each of the sequel seasons becoming worse and worse. This series also can become extremely annoying with its use of themes, as the hints of friendship just don't sound like something anyone would ever say. They are not bad themes, they just aren't presented in the right way. The ideas of this story are horrible, as they are simply a copy of the plot of both the original series and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. Overall, it's really a tragedy how bad this story is. Animation: The animation of this series is fine, the characters don't look fake. The character design could use some work, as the hairstyles of people in this show is just plain weird. Overall, it looks nice, but could be better. Sound: I don't see anything wrong with the sound. I can understand everything. Nothing is too loud. Overall, I have nothing to complain about in this part. Characters: This is what blew it for me. Some of the characters are just so annoying, I don't know why I even continued to watch it sometimes. They talk way too much and many have a very annoying voice. In addition to this, they also have awful catch phrases, possibly the worst I've ever heard. However, they do a good job with character developement, but all the other flaws just overpower it completely. Overall, the characters are just so annoying and flawed, that it's hard to watch sometimes. Overall: Overall, this series is not worth watching. While I felt obligated to see it through as a fan of all the previous series, I was extremely dissapointed with this one. The story was a copy, and the characters were so annoying that I wanted to just throw something at them. In general, this series was awful, and I hope the next one is better.

StardustSynchro2011
2

So, can I still say that this show has something worth to offer than being just here for no reason? Okay, on to the review. Jack delves into the origins of Yu-Gi-Oh's most polarizing series And its mixedly-received base...And also discusses the roles and consequences of a show where half its cast couldn't competently deliver their roles to its writing because this was not the first time this happened. Whoever thought of having the villains be more focused the than heroes is just bullshit. That is why I can say it as a spoiler. Zexal is either a good or bad show depending on how you view it, but in general, it wasn't made for people at the right time to consume it during the early 2010s. It like so much going on at that time but what really happened wasn't much was said and understood. To give you what really went down I will have to start from the start. Keep in mind I won't go off-topic till I save the best for last. Keep in mind that when this series was a thing, so was Pokemon Black and White in the 2010s as well.  Misunderstood, Mixed Reception, And Not Understanding it? Zexals is more like a complete mix of misunderstood and mixed reception series since when its inception came out in the early 2010s around its debut was given mostly negative reception due to the change of tone from the darker and mature tone of 5D's to a more childish and stupid late Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously who wrote this shit and why is it so important to do this transition from good to bad is just an attempt to make people want to hate Konami? I could never get it at first, but with some research, I was able to find that the people who wanted this series were sellouts since the former while it did well to make itself known as a masterpiece among the anime community did really worse with children since 5D's was kinda given a parental watch group who kept calling the show's bs every week for not being ''child'' and ''friendy'' and not understand what the former did because the problem with people watching Yu-Gi-Oh is more of a problematic thing than a story narrative. You see most problems for Zexal came from the fact it had an identity narrative that highly focused too much on the story that everything is complex for children to understand at first. Not that it was that bad, but was SUPER bad to get into since the show was what got former fans of the series really pissed off at watching this series, and being able to handle its silly and goofy antics each week made it worst for people to accept it and that got a lot of former fans of the original trilogy so mad at this mess that they were the ones who hated it and never understood it's reception since most of it's problems came from fake news like ''it sucks'' ''don't watch it'' or the most obvious one ''It killed Yugioh'' as i can go on. I know that people tried to defend it, but that wasn't enough since the old-school fans went too far to hate it. To sum up each topic. - Misunderstood is mostly that the series wasn't doing much for people who first saw it. Keep in mind that this happened in the early 2010s led to a lot of problems for the fandom to put the pieces in the puzzle, but sadly that was lost in translation because the people who hated Zexal actually made it for many reasons. And to be fair. I do think Zexal has bad writing and bad storytelling, but what really killed me was that the transition from ''dark'' to ''child-friendly'' made it so much harder to understand what was really happening. -Mix Reception is somewhat the show itself being bad from the ghetto and not being honest with itself. Like I keep saying it with modern anime. There is no such thing as a show that breaks the troup or tries to be completely original doesn't make it a masterpiece or even has the audacity to be considered good or bad. This show's reception is because it wasn't well written, had bad narrative plot progression, plot holes, filler, bad animation at times, forgetful characters, too many villains, too much plot, and not enough problems. That is the problem This was the original black sheep series that killed Yugioh in the past, but in today's modern world where everyone wants people to forgive it the what drives me off the wall. Since that is the main theme of this show that has led to so much anger from the fandom since its dark days. Another problem with this show is how it uses its ideas and cast, but does it so badly that it makes me want to scream it out with my loungs. The culmination of this series itself is what leads to it's bad reception with everything wrong. Heck, this series was so bad that people only defend it because some of them were social justice warriors and snowflakes who can't accept modern problems like it being a first-world problem or some other shit. If Yu-Gi-Oh did fall off and can't be redeemed, then blame this show for everything that started it. A. Every Character is a joke cliche of a stereotype who doesn't even remotely come close to being perfect or good. The people who keep promoting this wasteland of an anime keep milking to death on social media that it was a so-called ''masterpiece'' but it failed with character narrative the most. B. The Writing doesn't help the fact it's generic and sub-par with the animation. C. Bad Troupes. I need to make it clear. This series is below average and keeps using the most average troupes you can find.  D. Cheap Asspulls, Satire with Fake Suspension and Tension E. Season Slit was the fault for the bad writing to take in the effect. - Not Understanding Zexal: Look I made it clear before, Yugioh fans can't read shit or understand anything that's currently going on in the series. They don't understand behind-the-scenes problems unless they get confused and start yelling their own propaganda. They can't even take a goddamn shower or understand simple logic because most YGO fans use fake news for opium. Unless people ban together and tell the whole Yugioh community the truth like that 5D's was always a better show than modern Yugioh can be a good sign. People who don't get Zexal need to for fuck sake get their facts together and learn to read before spreading lies. Lies? You see part of the problem with the Yu-Gi-Oh community was it's BS lies about what i said above. Most people in the community come off as clueless and don't get shit or understand shit. Everyone just believes whatever false media they can find and spreads rumors and lies on the internet for copium. There is a reason the anime community was crap during the early and late 2010s. Because of misinformation that doesn't even have a meaning like ''truth'' or ''lies''. Like most of the youtube community is just saying bullshit and falsely saying shit. Like, take the Dragon Ball fans who want Super to return, but nothing of them comes out as truth only for them to sugarcoat it and makeup shit. The other reason is people who can't accept the truth or understand it as a meaning to an end for people's lives. One more problem: Takahashi hated this show so much. Yes! I am not lying about it. I know that even god knows that Takahashi hated this series which is clearly admitted in a lost interview that if he knew that this series was that Terrible he would have bothered to include Kawabara as the director for DSOD which completely fucked up that project as well. 2/10

noyako
5.3

I dropped this anime at first sigh, I only watched 3 episodes and I knew it wouldn't have a good premise. But many years after this lame attempt, I tried to watch this until the end and accomplished that mission. Plot: The MC is Tsukumo Yuma, a 13 teenager boy whose motto is "Katobing" that means "I'm going to rock" or something along that line (I watched it in my native language so I don't know how I should translate this). He made a pact with the Emperor's Key, the necklace he uses along the series, to obtain a new power. So he is now able to see a duel spirit named "Astral", and they are bounded by that "contract". By now, Yuma is the only one able to see Astral so other characters think he is speaking alone. Astral reveals that he came from another world (yea, isekai boyz) but he lost his memories and the only way for him to recover them is by colleting the "numbers", exceed (XYZ in english translation) cards that spread around Heartland City (the place where the plot revolves). So Yuma have to help Astral fullfill this mission since they are bounded and it means if Yuma lose a duel, it means Astral will disappear and at least Yuma is empathic to help him. Basically, when Yuma duels, the more his HP is close do zero, less visible Astral becomes because he will, as I said, disappear if Yuma is beaten. First thing is that compared of all of the MCs from the previous anime franchise, I found this boy (Yuma) the most irritating of all. He is childish, impulsive, acts before thinking and all the characteristics you would find... annoying, yea. He lacks tacts and dueling skills, that later will be compensated because he starts do listen to his partner, Astral, who is good at duels. At first they don't get well, but after a couple of episodes, they start to get along and Yuma starts to think of Astral as his friend. Yuma has a lot of friends he can count on: Kotori, Tetsuo, Catty-chan, Tokunosuke and the class president who I forgot the name. And it seems this helpless boy has 2 girls crushing on him (don't know wtf they see on him but love is love)... Later, he and his first rival and also the first antagonist in the anime, Shark, become friends because Yuma is really persistent. He thinks that he is friends with all people whom he dueled and that by dueling the duelists will know more about each other (the same thing after 3 franchises repeating over and over again). From his friends, Shark and Tokunosuke were possessed by the "numbers" and Yuma defeated them and Astral was able to retrieve pieces of his memories. And yea, the "numbers" possess their owners and reveal all the darkness in their heart (this one reminded me a bit of the first anime). The anime progress by Yuma collecting "numbers" and a lot of eventful things happen along the course. The most memorable was the Duel Carnival Festival promoted by the most powerful and influential man in the city, Mr. Heartland. In this event, duelist from all around the world will duel and have to collect six pieces of heart parts to make a full heart. They collect them by beating duelists. Some people will stay in Yuma's way, a shounen classic tactics. In this arc, some new antagonists are revealed, as well as an anti-hero, Kaito, who Yuma tried hard to befriend, but Kaito reject a lot of his attempts. From that point on, the plot seems to become 'okay', there is some twists here and there and the past of these new characters are revealed, to the point of feeling empathic towards them. Yuma's father past is also revealed too, he is the one responsible for lefting this weird "Katobing" motto Yuma uses all along the series. The end were left with lots of questions without answers and it frustrated me. Personally, I only watched this because I wanted to know about a specific character backstory and for this point, it really surprised me. I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone, you can watch Yu-gi-oh classic, Yu-gi-oh GX or 5D's, they are a lot superior compared to this one but feel free to make your decision. About the other points, I found the animation okay, wasn't the best but wasn't the worst. I watched it in mid quality because I was not able to watch in HD, if it has it's option. The sound were good, there were a lot of unique speechs traits in the characters, some were even funny (I watched this in original dub - japanese) and the effects sounds were also good as well. To be sincere, I did not pay attention in the OPs and EDs to opine. The characters were overall okay, some were well developed some not. Yuma had a good development even though I still find him annoying, but he became less annoying as the show was about to end. Personally, I liked Shark, Kaito, Four and Three the most. They really had an interesting but sad backstory. That's all of it.

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