Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions - A Worthy Follow Up to the Original Anime

In a lot of ways when I write this I'll also be talking about the first series of Yugioh as a whole. The reason for that is there is something about Yugioh that needs to be expressed up front, and that is as a show it is terrible. It is in part a show about a card game in which there are no consistent rules, so the very core of the show is hard to take seriously. More so when you realize the fate of the very world hands in the balance of a children s card game. People are being sacrificed, dark rituals happen in the shadow realm, souls are being captured and sealed away, a man who runs a multi-billion dollar company has his pride tested and put on the line to the point he nearly kills himself by placing himself in a situation which he would be blown off a bridge, all over a children s card game.

Yes, there is more going on in the background, but there is no getting around this fact. But at the same time, that is kind of part of the appeal of the show. Yes, the rules are so loose and borderline ignored that everything that happens in the show is basically complete nonsense, but all of these characters take it all so seriously. The characters are also really great for the most part, and the show goes all in on the over the top nature that despite everything you can get wrapped up in the nonsense and kind of start to care about this.

Also note, there will be spoilers about how Yugioh ends since this movie takes place after the ending of the original series. And if you were never a fan, then you will be entirely lost on a lot of what happens, as this movie makes no effort to at all to catch you up.

For example, at no point during the first half of this movie does it bring up the fact that Atem, the Pharaoh, was sealed in the Millennium Puzzle and shared a body with Yugi. This makes all the dialogue sound like they were gay lovers, and let me tell you I laughed my ass off.

Aside from the potentially unintentionally gay undertones, the first thing I notice is how incredibly well animated this entire show is. I never would have expected a movie to come out this long after the series ended to have had this much attention given to it. This show really does come across as a love letter to the original series, and it's clear the people who made this understood the show.

And what they did with this understanding was ramp everything up to an insane degree. They do have some fun taking shots at itself though, my favorite being the part where Kaiba duels an artificial version of the Pharaoh, and when complimented on how much work went into making it he remarks that the hardest part was getting the perfectly quaffed hair.

The villain eventually makes his entrance as Kaiba digs up the Millennium Puzzle, which was thought to be gone lost after the end of the series. In order to keep the Pharaoh from resurrecting and causing the mystical power that was released upon the Pharaoh's departure to once again disappear. And during the duel, Kaiba is at a point where he can apparently summon no monsters, and monsters no longer have effects, but says screw all that and summons Obelisk the Tormenter, one of the God cards that don't even exist anymore, and the justification for all this is 'He isn't a monster, he is a God'.

And you know what? This is exactly the kind of thing you would expect to happen near the end of the anime but magnified to an even greater degree. That whole aspect of the show being so ridiculous you get wrapped up in it kind of lets it get away with stupid things like this and still have you on board with the show. It's almost kind of funny that the villain, throughout the entire movie, loses every duel he is part of.

There is another moment I'll talk about at the end, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie and is interested in it, but it gets crazier, so I'll end the review with that and give you all a spoiler warning in advance, but you're good to keep reading before that.

Something else this movie did that I really did love is it didn't try to tell you there was some greater and more powerful evil just for the sake of having a movie villain. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring plays an important role here, and while I don't want to spoil that part either the show still makes it clear that thing is still the real evil in the world, and it's things like that which really show the creators of the movies respect and love for the original material. It also helps bring home the fact that any time the show makes jokes about itself, it's coming from a place of love.

I loved finally watching this movie. Yes, it's an endless string of nonsense and holographic projections of giant cards fighting each other, and yes the reason the whole world is saved is because one man spends what has to be billions of dollars digging up the Puzzle and constructing a giant space station that remains connected to earth with a tube so that Kaiba can easily get there and back at a whim, and the whole reason this station seems to be built is so that the Millennium Puzzle could be reconstructed by machines easily in a Zero Gravity environment too improve efficiency, all for the sole purpose of dueling a guy who beat him in a children s card game so he could prove to the entire world he was better at it. And no, there is no actual rules to this in-universe game.

If you are a fan of the original at all, everything about this show will appeal to you. It has all the cheesiness, over the top card game action, and disregard for any kind of rules that made the original so fun to watch, and they do it all in an even grander way with some fantastic graphics and animation to back it up. No sane world is one that would allow something like this to be presented is such grandiose detail, yet here it is. Defiantly watch this movie if you were a fan of the anime.

This movie and the Duel Monsters era of Yugioh is truly a testament to this idea. No matter how stupid, silly, or ridiculous your idea is, if you have the conviction to commit to it wholeheartedly you can make it work.

And now for the spoiler.

The most insane thing about the show happens at the end. Using all the power of his corporation and technology, Kaiba is able to use the cube that originally granted power to the enemies and has developed a way to traverse between life and the afterlife. He has created a technology for greater and beyond anything, the world of Yugioh had ever known, and something that would put to shame most futuristic and Scifi shows.

And he uses this power to duel the Pharaoh in a children s card game in the afterlife. God I love this movie.