[image ID// photo of bernie sanders with the text “i am once again asking you to watch Yu-Gi-Oh! gx //end ID]
yes yes i know recomending the cardgame anime spinoff is propably the weirdest thing i could be doing but trust me it has a LOT of thematic smilarities and depending on your reason for liking tma you may very well like gx as well
a quick bullet point list of reasons to watch gx from a tma fans perspective:
explores themes of loss, sacrifice, inhumanity, consequences, depression, the inevetability of fate, spitting in the face of said fate
and all that fun stuff
subverting the traditional associations of light and dark as good and evil
“you can still be friends with someone you want to use”
(yes i know that one is more a81 but it applies)
GREAT protagonist character development
completely breaking the protagonist down to their bare essentials throughout the course of the series (but especially during s3)
Canon Typical Guilt Complex
strong supporting cast
characters with supernatural powers
canon non-binary character
on that note
canon nblm character
canon (?) mlnb character
european (?) character that ISNT italian, german, french or brittish for once (a personal pet peeve of mine)
the struggles of growing up and the uncertainty and fear of what the future may hold
and last but not least
the slow series long descent into despair that every ygo spinoff has to some extent but damn if season 3 didnt set a high standard it got dark
all that said i do think i should warn you that wheni say the show gets dark i mean it gets dark. the ygo series overall might shy away from a bit of blood but it is not at all afraid of diving into heavier themes and making you feel it. do not be fooled by the lighthearted nature of the first season it is not afraid to make you cry.
which seems strange for a show thats seemingly just a childrens cardgame anime but when you take into account that ygo started out as a horror manga, and only switched over to the cardgame structure when the duel monsters arc took off, it makes a lot more sense.
(further talking and content warnings below the cut)
all that said heres a couple content warnings (in no particular order):
child abuse
childhood trauma
emotional and financial abuse
less than stellar family members in general
memory loss
medically induced amnesia (yes these are seperate instances)
themes of suicide
themes of depression and isolation (canon typical Lonely content but its all of gx s4)
unreality / dream logic (kinda. again, s4)
cults
brainwashing, mind control and manipulation
loss of physical and mental autonomy (of a sort)
genocide
implied death of children
confirmed death of children
mentions of real world tragedies (offhand once or twice in s2)
significant mental and emotional torment of the main character
temporary character death
permanent character death
(no
neither of these are the typical “shadow realm” ygo deaths im talking about regular dying, and not of the fun and peaceful kind either)
(yes several of these are on screen)
also please not that some of these content warnigns apply to all of, or multiple series of ygo
especially themes of suicide, child abuse, and genocide, all 3 of which are covered in every ygo series on SOME level with varying severity
it may seem tempting to skip straight to season 3, as a lot of the
more tma esque content is found there (though s2 goes hard as well in my
opinion) i really do recomend watching the show from start to finish,
as pretty much all the characters experience some level of character
development, and seeing them all change throughout the series is an absolute
treat.
also on the dub vs sub debate i really do reccoment
watchign GX subbed. not bc dubbed anime are nessecatily bad but bc Dub
and Sub GX are practically 2 entirely different shows with the amount of
changes 4kids decided to make, as well as season 4 not having a dub at
all as 4kids wanted to move on to 5ds instead.
(on a semi related note if the anti establishment aspects of tma are more your jam youll propably like 5ds, which has themes of poverty, classism, said eat the rich and litterally abolished the police force by the end of the series while also being about playing cardgames on motorcycles at the same time)
(honestly i could propably make a whole post on the central themes of each ygo series they really take a theme and apply it EVERYWHERE)
