I work as an online inventory specialist at a card shop. This is just a fancy way of saying I put cards online. As a result, I am surround by TCGs everyday. I handle Pokemon, Yugioh, Magic, Digimon, Dragon Ball Super and plenty of others on a less frequent basis.

Because of this, I’ve been on a giant Yugioh kick. Thus, I’ve been making more post about it lately. Today I want to talk about Yugioh and how I fell in love with it.

I dont exactly know the complete history of Yugioh and the timeline. I know it was a manga created by a man who loved horror but wanted or needed to make a more traditional Shounen. So he made a manga about a card game with very grotesque and disturbed creatures. Sadly, a tradition that does not seem to be nearly as prevalent anymore.

I also think the anime predates the cards, or at least the official rules. That’s my understanding of it anyway. The anime, along with Pokemon, made up my childhood. I’m pretty confident I loved Pokemon more as kid. Yet, I never really did more than collect the cards. However, I was obsessed with the Yugioh card game. It was by far the card game of choice at school. We played it so often, it got banned in my 3rd grade class. We played it so much in 2nd grade. I think everyone from this time period remembers schoolyard Yugioh fondly. It is kind of like school yard basketball or football where you just played to have fun and it was wild. The creatures were iconic and the duels were a blast. The game has changed so much, I think that only adds to the nostalgic factor. People see all the new XYZ, Synchro and Link monsters and it is so far removed from setting your creature face down and setting 2 cards in the back row and passing your turn.

I’m learning so much about hand traps and creatures that negate effects and spells. It really is a different time, but it has been for a while. Honestly, I loved all of Yugi’s creatures and pretty much any creature in the anime, but Yugioh GX gave the Elemental Heroes and those are probably my favorite archetype in the whole series. My Brother’s name is Jayden and he was born in 03, so it was really something to see the main character have the same name as him. I also loved superheroes. So this was a great match. I feel like they gave the monsters a lot of charm and that made it all the more awesome.

I remember going to my local K-Mart and buying the Yugi Starter Deck and Kaiba Starter Deck for me and my other brother to play and duel countless hours away with. Going to Walmart or K-mart was a real treat back than as we could pick out booster packs to add cards to our collection. I still have a ton of the cards I opened as a kid. My brother and I would fight so much over cards we had to write our initials on them. I still remember when my mom enforced this rule. As an adult, it might be the cringiest thing I did in my youth. But that was the rule. Every time I see those cards I laugh a little and die inside a lot.

When I finished 5th grade and the summer wrapped up, my mom sat me down and told me I had to grow up. She said I would get bullied if I kept playing Yugioh. She wanted me to throw away all my cards. Well, I told her she raised me better than to care about other people’s opinion. I think it gave her a heart attack as I’m sure her co-workers told her this small minded crap. She got her wish, sort of. I did not throw away my cards. But as I drifted away from my brother and lost my elementary school friends. I had no one to play with anymore. So I put all my cards in a tacklebox and stuck them in my closest.

Boy, am I glad I kept them. I know play Yugioh as well as a handful of other games like Pokemon with my now wife. We love it. And my job is literally handling Yugioh cards. haha So, I stopped playing Yugioh for about 10 years and again for another 5, but I’ve found my way back to it for the 3rd time in my life.

Who knows how long this ride will last but I am here for it.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!