Yu-Gi-Oh-My-God! Is America the new Japan?

America is a young country. It hasn’t yet had time to develop a true identity of its own, but rather than concentrate on doing this, they’re content to swipe bits from everywhere else. Musically, they’ve often turned to Britain for inspiration. Now, in some ways, it seems they’re turning their attention towards Japan.

Japanese influence has worked its way into most American homes with kids or geeky adults. Pokemon, Dragonball “Zee”, Yu-Gi-Oh… there are numerous trading card games associated with these things, and also plenty of videogames that are closely tied to them too.

The 11th annual hair-stylists’ convention got off to a cracking start.

I’ve never really understood the trading card phenomenon. The Pokemon thing started it off, with its seductive “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” tagline. Kids were going nuts for those things ages ago, and still are. Now there are all kinds of trading card games popping up, with the most popular of them appearing to be Yu-Gi-Oh. I see these everywhere I go, and it’s not just kids that play/trade them, adults with dubious fashion tastes can be seen facing off against kids a third their age.

There’s one ‘mall’ I go to, which is pretty typical looking. You go through the doors, there’s a large Food Court area to walk through, and then the shopping area begins. However, one of the first shops is a Games Workshop, and that whole end of the Food Court is often taken up by countless tables of Yu-Gi-Oh players, of all ages, engaged in a massive spod-off. It’s just as well I’m still pretty nimble in my advancing years. You have to be to get through the throng of tables surrounded by bags and bags of geek equipment.

Careful now. Easy does it. You don’t want me to stand on your new Warhammer figures, do you? So
SHIFT YER FUCKIN’ BAGS!!!

Of course, to those involved this isn’t a food court. It’s an arena, a mighty colosseum. To the bearded 45-year-old, weighing in at 30 stone, that’s not a spotty 13-year-old sitting opposite, it’s Yami-Yugi. As for the 13-year-old, he’s not battling a lumpy, ageing, beardy, he’s facing off against the mighty Kuriboh, and the teen girl with a gobful of braces that just walked past giggling is not Madison from his class at school, it’s Yu-Gi-Oh stunna Mai Valentine. Me, I’m Cynical, Head-Shaking Limey.

It’s all well and good, I suppose. It’s like poker for geeks. You compete face-to-face with human opponents in a card battle, except you’re not likely to lose your shirt or house if Lady Luck isn’t on your side; you’ll just be in tears at the loss of an almost irreplaceable card featuring your favourite game’s super-being. What I really don’t get, though, are the videogames based on these things.

Let me see. Which one should I use for this fight? OH, JUST GET ON WITH IT, WILL YOU?

Honestly, what’s the fun in them? I’ve said before, I like my games to have lots of spontaneous, constant, on-the-fly action. What I don’t like is having to stop while everyone organises themselves in an orderly fashion, carefully selects an action and then waits to see if the character will pull it off. Look, the enemy’s there, let me just go and hit the bastard! But what’s worse than that is when you have to fight using…. a pack of cards?

I know games aren’t necessarily supposed to be realistic, but having your character bump into an enemy, then stop while he whips out his deck of cards to fight with is perhaps the stupidest game premise I think I’ve ever encountered. Yet somehow millions of people buy into this. Why? I can sort of understand it when it’s real cards that are being bandied about, but when it’s all happening on a screen, surely any excitement or tension is lost? Apparently not, for the worshipping masses.

Hurray! I hit him for minus 200. MINUS 200 WHAT? It doesn’t make any sense!

Back when I was a kid, we used to have Panini footy stickers. We’d carry our big wadge of ‘swaps’ around the schoolyard, wrapped in an elastic band to keep them from getting lost. As for playing cards, the only ones we were interested in were Top Trumps. They were the only card-based game in town, and you got to keep every one you bought, unless one of your bastard Leeds-supporting friends swiped your Trevor Cherry to stick on his headboard.

Trevor Cherry. League Appearances – 393. I win!

I think I was always too old to appreciate the Pokemon trading card phenomenon, and all videogame versions left me cold. I don’t understand them, and though I’ve made efforts, it’s just not happening. But then, I suppose these kids wouldn’t see the appeal in loading up Paradroid on a Commodore 64 emulator, either. Horses for courses. I’ll take laser death over card shuffling any day. Unless it’s Top Trumps, of course. If only someone would do a videogame-based version of that. ;)

PAULEMOZ, August 2004.

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*PaulEMoz lives in Americaland with his wife and his kid. So we thought we'd call his regular column: 'With my kid in America' which is a clever play on the old Kim Wilde smash - 'We're the Kids in America - whoo oo'. PaulE is originally from Consett, the town that invented tortilla chips and drunk fat lasses in night-club queues, wearing only mini-skirts and boob-tubes in fucking December, and eating chips out of each other's cleavages so as to earn advancement towards the door. It's grim up North.