Image from yugioh-world.com
Hello there! It’s me, DB and today, I bring you my review of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions! WARNING: This post contains spoilers, so if you want to see the film, but you don’t want to be spoiled yet, then please stop reading this post and go see it! Then you can come back to read what I thought of the film.
So, first of all, the story takes place after the Ceremonial Duel between Yugi and the Pharaoh Atem. Seto Kaiba sets his sites on reassembling the Millennium Puzzle. He wants to duel Atem one more time to settle their 3,000 year old score! The puzzle isn’t completed because 2 pieces are missing and Kaiba knows who holds those pieces, Yugi and the new character Aiyami.
So, Kaiba hosts a tournament to retrieve those missing pieces. He invited only Yugi and Aiyami to compete and he introduces his new Dimension Dueling system, which includes a new Duel Disk.
Aiyami has a story too. He, along with his sister Sarah and a bunch of other orphan kids, are rescued by Shadi from a man that did not treat them kindly! Shadi then tells the kids of the Millennium Items, but he was interrupted when Bakura’s father entered the chamber where the items were supposed to be, the same location that was used in the Ceremonial Duel. Bakura’s dad sought out the Millennium Ring, one of the Items that had dark powers in it. Bakura’s father and Shadi were killed, but the kids, including Bakura, were spared, with the ring choosing Bakura as it’s host body.
Fast forward to the future, where Yugi and his friends discussed what they wanted to do after they graduated. This was their senior year at Domino High School. Teia wanted to be a dancer in New York, Joey wants to be a pro duelist and Yugi wants to create his own game while helping his grampa at the shop.
Aiyami has other plans. He wants to destroy the world and recreate it as he sees fit, which sets off one last grand adventure in the original series!
Ok, now that that’s all out of the way, here’s my review. I LOVED THIS FILM! Here’s why:
First off, the animation was on point! It was smooth and colorful! I felt that the animation department should get a BIG thumbs up for their work! I also liked the detail, especially when they did the cards. I liked that when the animators put in the cards, they did them based on the region that the movie was playing in. Since this movie is playing all around the world, the animators decided to draw the cards in the form of how they were used in a region. For example, since I live in the US, they designed the cards in the form of the TCG which English names and texts for effects. I liked that a lot! That’s what they did in the US, but I believe that they did it in different ways around the world. It depends on which country you see this film in. They could’ve made the cards in Korean OCG style in Korea, etc.
Second was the voice acting. You can’t have a Yu-Gi-Oh movie without the original voice actors!
Third was the introduction of the Dimension Duel. I liked that concept more then the Solid Vision in Arc V. I liked it because you could use your imagination a bit. You can determine how strong your monster is as long as it doesn’t exceed it’s original ATK points. For example, if you had a Blue-Eyes White Dragon and your opponent has a weak monster and only 500 LP left, you can then make your Blue-Eyes 500 points stronger then your opponents monster. Also, you don’t need any sacrifices to summon monsters, just like Duelist Kingdom.
I thought the story was a good, basic Yu-Gi-Oh story. I know there’s lots to it when I described it earlier in the post. However, I do recommend that you see the first few episodes of the original series to at least try to understand what is going on in the movie.
If you were able to see the film in theaters, then you should’ve gotten a promo card! This time, it’s Obelisk the Tormentor, the Egyptian God card that Kaiba used in the Battle City arc. I think he also used in the Shadow Realm arc too. Let me say this card is SCARY AWESOME! The image is cool! I think you should keep it in case it’s value goes up!
To me, Aiyami made a good villain, though I thought he wasn’t as good as Marik. Put Aiyami with the Millennium Ring and you got something scary, but not as scary as Marik was with the Millennium Rod! Now that was Joker scary! Aiyami’s deck contained the new Cubic cards. I could see this deck doing well at a major event like a Regional tourney or maybe even WCQ events (that’s World Championship Qualifier). How he used the Seeds to create more powerful Cubic monsters is a good strategy.
Overall, I give this film 5 out of 5 stars! I deem this film to be a good finale to the original series! The story was good, the acting was good, the animation was excellent and the cards printed as if they were printed in different OCG/TCG styles was awesome! GO SEE THIS FILM! Thank’s for reading!
BTW, I thought the Bakura back story was good. It answered some questions that Yu-Gi-Oh fans, like myself, wanted to ask!
If you want to see a video version of this review, please click here: https://youtu.be/mdcliaTulfI
