Reaction & Review | Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions

Welcome, one and all, to the 50th episode of Reaction & Review. My god, guys, I cannot believe I actually made it to this milestone. I'm probably going to be repeating myself when I say this kind of thing, but I genuinely thought that I was going stop writing these reviews by episode 5 and just packing it in afterwards. But I'm so damn happy to have made this far. And I wanted to find a movie that, not only would be perfect for this sort of milestone, but it's a movie that I've been wanting to watch for the last few years now. Tonight's movie, for episode 50, is an animated film from 2016. That movie is "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions".

Now, for those of you who don't know me, I have been a fan of this franchise almost my entire life. I have seen the original "Yu-Gi-Oh!" series during my childhood, and I loved it. I collected the trading cards when I was trying to build my poorly structured deck, I've played a few of the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" video games, and I'm going to include Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links as well. At least, until it became un-fucking-playable because of it's terrible PVP, but I'm not going to dwell on that here. I've also seen most of the other "Yu-Gi-Oh!" series that came after the original. I watched "Yu-Gi-Oh! GX", which I didn't even know existed until I watched an episode of it one night with a friend on Cartoon Network. And it wasn't really my thing, personally. I, then, watched "Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's", which I thought was amazing. I absolutely loved that series, and I consider it almost as good as the original series. I watched most of "Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal", which was pretty good, until it stopped airing on TV, and I didn't get a chance to finish the rest of that series. I saw bits and pieces of "Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V" on Nickelodeon, but I haven't seen enough to gauge an opinion on it. And I know there's another "Yu-Gi-Oh!" series that came after "Arc V" which was called " Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS", but I don't even know if that thing has an English dub, so I can't really say anything about it. Plus also, I don't have that much of an interest in watching it, anyways.

And then we get to this movie, which I know is set, sometime, after the ending of the original series. I also know that this movie was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise, which is totally awesome. Now, before I get into this thing, I should mention that I have seen the previous two "Yu-Gi-Oh!" movies. "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie", which I enjoyed as a child, has aged a little bit poorly. And "Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time", while ridiculously short, was still pretty good. I'm hoping for this movie to be better than the previous two films in this series.

Now, as much I would like to say that I'm going into this thing blind, I do know what's going to happen. Because, thanks to playing Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, it kinda spoiled me about what's going to happen story-wise. So, while I do know that much going in, I want to know how we get to all of that. That part, I don't know. I am certainly hoping for this thing to be amazing. But the only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions".

14 minutes later

Thank Christ, those bullies are fucking gone. I totally forgot about Scud, in particular, when I played Duel Links. Because trying to unlock him was a pain in the ass. I totally understand that what I'm saying has almost nothing to do with the movie, but I kinda needed to vent there. In fact, I feel totally happy now that they're gone this early in the movie. So, hopefully, they'll stay that way.

13 minutes later

Wait, so nobody noticed Aigami disappear? He was right within crowd range, and nobody saw him? I could understand not being able to see his friend, comrade, whatever, but the fact that Aigami disappeared, while people were walking by, comes across as a bit stupid.

5 minutes later

You know, guys, I just noticed this, but Kaiba seems a lot more relax to the idea of magic being real and how to counter against it like it's nothing. I'm still wondering how the hell he knows about Aigami's other name, but I'm gonna hold off on that, and see if this movie will attempt to explain that.

9 minutes later

Wait a second here. So, Kaiba just tribute summoned 3 of his monsters to summon Obelisk the Tormentor. Setting aside the fact that the Egyptian God cards, as the movie just stated, disappeared after the Pharaoh returned to the spirit world, how was he able tribute summon during a dimension duel? Because earlier, Aigami stated that you can summon whatever monsters you want, regardless of it's star power, so why exactly does Obelisk need the standard 3 monster tribute summon? It's kinda bugging a bit, and the more I think about it, the more it's starting hurting my head.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, I was just thinking about something. So, Joey's trapped in this dimension world where Aigami has banished him to. And he's telling Joey that his memories will fade and that no one will remember him. Do you know what this reminds me of? It reminds of the shadow duel between Yami Marik and Mai Valentine. I understand that most people who haven't seen the original "Yu-Gi-Oh!" show will have no idea what I'm talking about, but this whole thing about Joey losing his memories while stuck in this dimension world is reminding me of that. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

15 minutes later

So Kaiba's telling Yugi to take part in his tournament, because Yugi holds a piece of the Millennium Puzzle...all the while both of them are standing in the middle of traffic, where all cars have stopped. Did they have to have this conversation in the middle of traffic? It just seems really weird that nobody is yelling at them to get out of the way. I understand that it's trivial, and fucking stupid, to even bring up, but it just seems out of place to me for them to be having this conversation, you know?

5 minutes later

...I was going to say that was quite possibly the darkest death I have ever seen where a fighter pilot dies from a blast from the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, but no. It was just a hologram. Still though, at least it was something different.

9 minutes later

Wait a fucking second here. So, Diva's Cubic monsters can just fuse together at will and attack Yugi multiple times directly? I can, maybe, understand if Diva was playing a Quick-Play fusion spell, but he's not. I know this because, when I played Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, they never had the ability to fuse. You had to summon them in a certain way in order to get the necessary Cubic monster you want. This kinda shit is one of the reasons why I stopped playing Duel Links, and it's because of that kind of bullshit where players would spam the same shitty decks, with cards and moves that would, almost, guarantee you a win in one turn. I understand that I'm getting way off topic here, but the more I think about this, the more that it's hurting my brain.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions". Let me shut that off...holy shit. What to even talk about first...? Well...I guess I can start by saying that, out of all 3 of the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" movies that exist, this one is quite possibly the best. However, that's not saying a whole lot, considering that the first movie has aged, kinda, poorly. And the other movie has a ridiculously short runtime.

So, with that out of the way, let's start with the writing. Way back when I covered "Transformers: The Movie", I said that there was a possibility that you could go into that movie and be lost on certain things, if you were unfamiliar with Transformers. However, I was willing to overlook most of that, because the story is still really sharp, and the writing helped carried that movie forward. When it comes "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions", I will say that the story is really interesting, by the standards of "Yu-Gi-Oh!". But there is one thing that could potentially ruin this movie for you, and it really has to do with the duels. Now, what I mean by that is, if you are someone who has never seen the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" TV show, or if you've never played the trading card game, then you're probably going to hate this movie. Because the one thing about "Yu-Gi-Oh!" is that it relies heavily on duels for just about everything. And if you're watching this thing, and you don't understand how the game works, then you're probably gonna ask a ton of questions. And, believe me, I was asking a ton of questions myself when watching this thing, even as a fan of "Yu-Gi-Oh!". So, if you try to watch this movie as your first experience with "Yu-Gi-Oh!", you're probably not going to understand any of this, and, as I made mention before, you're probably going to end up hating it because of the game's logic issues. Your best bet, if you want to get into "Yu-Gi-Oh!", is to start with the original show. Granted, the first season is incredibly dated, and rather goofy, but it's still watchable. And the other seasons after that are still really solid. But that's just me talking about the show.

As I said, this movie has a ton of logic issues involving the duels. So, let's start by talking about Dimension dueling. Now, because I have played Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, I do have some experience with it. So, when you are playing in this Dimension duel, you can summon monsters that are above the 4 star rating on the monster cards. With the one lone exception being the Egyptian God monsters. Now yes, I did ask how exactly was Kaiba able to tribute summon Obelisk the Tormentor, even though they were playing in this Dimension duel, and you can summon just about any monster you want, regardless of it's star rating. Well, as that duel ended, I did remember that you can do that in Duel Links, because I was someone who played as Kaiba, and tribute summoned Obelisk the Tormentor during certain events where you can play in Dimension duels. So, I will retract that question I had earlier about it, because it was something that I had forgotten about, up until the ending of the duel between Kaiba and Aigami. Or Diva, if you prefer. But there were two things I do not remember about Dimension dueling. The first thing was that you can summon monsters by infusing your spirit with them, or some shit like that, and you can determine how many attack points they get based on how you summon them. I do not remember that when I was playing the Dimension duels in Duel Links, but that's honestly a minor thing, so I won't go too deep into that. What I can talk about are the Cubic monsters that Diva uses. Now, because I barely used them in Duel Links, I don't have that much knowledge on them. However, what I did remember was that you couldn't just fuse them together, unless you had 3 Cubic monsters of a certain kind, and they would go to the graveyard. They don't just attack your opponents life points and then you could fuse them back together and just attack your opponents life points again on a loop. It's stupidly overpowered, and it still reminds me of when players used the same, shitbag, decks that would use the same certain cards with the exact same moves, and, in most cases, would end a duel in one or two turns. Which was, as I made mentioned before, one of the reasons why I stopped playing Duel Links because PVP became so unplayable, that the duels stopped becoming fun and just made me quit the game entirely. But again, I'm getting way off track by venting about my experiences with Duel Links. My point is, Diva just uses these Cubic monsters by fusing them with each direct attack, and, as I stated, it's stupidly overpowered, and doesn't really make much sense. And Diva uses this same strategy again when he faces Yugi at this tournament that Kaiba's holding and he gets Yugi's life points down from 8000 to around 1000 in one turn. Again, I could maybe understand if Diva was using a Quick-Play spell when doing this stupid, over-powered, attack. But no, he can just do it on a will because fuck you, that's why.

Now, setting aside the duels, specifically on how the Dimension duels work, let's move on to the characters. Now again, for those who have never seen the original show, and if you're going into this movie as your first experience with "Yu-Gi-Oh!", you're probably going to see most of these characters as rather bland. With, one or two exceptions, but I'll get into those in a moment. But seeing as how I have seen the original show, I can say that most of them did have development. Now, because this movie is set about a year or two after the ending of the original series, we have most of the characters from the show back in this movie. Most of the characters are graduating High School, and are going to go their separate ways. We have Yugi Muto, who, after being parted away from Atem, is going to help his Grandfather run his game shop, while trying to come up with his own game so that he, and his friends, could play it together once it's completed. Joey Wheeler is wanting to become a pro duelist and wants to be number one. Honestly, of the original cast, Joey is the one character out of all of them, that has the least development in this movie. We don't get any information about his sister; Serenity, or anything about Mai. I'm not going to spoil anything about them, you're just gonna have to watch the show for yourself. We have Tristan, who never really had a big character arc, outside of him and Joey being bullies to Yugi from the original show, until another bully showed up where Yugi defended them and they became friends afterwards. The only thing that he's going to do is work at his dad's factory after graduation. So I can give Tristan a bit of a pass, even with the lack of a character arc for him. Tea, who is the only female of the group, wanted to become a dancer, as was established in the first season of the show. And she's gonna have her dreams realized after graduation. Also, she was a big advocate of friendship in the original show, which made her kind of annoying, but it still worked. Then we have Bakura, who, not only had a big role in the original series, but has more of a background as to how he obtained the Millennium Ring as a child, thanks to his father. I'm not gonna spoil how his father got his hands on the ring, you're gonna have to watch the movie for yourself. We also have a cameo appearance from Duke Devlin, who only played a small role during the Dungeon Dice saga. Duke doesn't really do much here, either. But again, he's only in here as a cameo for two or three scenes, so I'm not gonna go any further on him. So, in terms of the main cast, most of them have grown up within the year or two after the ending of the original series. 

But now, we move on to Seto Kaiba. Who's big motivation in this movie is that he wants to resurrect the Pharaoh by collecting the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle and putting them back together, so that he can duel him and claim his rightful place as the number one duelist. I want to touch upon Kaiba, himself, for a moment. Because in the original show, Kaiba only cared about himself. Without going into too much spoilers from the show, Kaiba lost to Yugi in the very first episode. And, setting aside his motivation from what he did in the first season, most of his goal was trying to beat Yugi, so that he could become the number one duelist again. Now, aside from him wanting to beat Yugi, he never believed in stuff such as magic, or ancient magic, in this case. And he always viewed it as "hocus pocus nonsense". Well, from the time of the ending of the original series, and into this movie, Kaiba suddenly believes in all of this ancient magic that he, once, tried to reject as a trick. So much so, that he suddenly knows about Aigami, and his powers of the Plana. Which, I still don't know how he knows anything about that, because we never get an explanation as to how he knows any of this stuff. I believe, at one point, Kaiba says that there's nothing that he doesn't know because he's a genius...sure. When someone comes up with a real answer, I'll be waiting for one. And seeing Kaiba just believe all of this stuff involving ancient magic, or how he, somehow, knows all about the Plana and it's magic, it comes across as a bit of a jump from his character from the original show, considering that he never believed anything involving magic. And then we Aigami, or Diva, or whatever, who's one of the few original characters in this movie that has the most development. And, outside of the bullshit involving the Dimension duels, his character is definitely the most interesting. And, without going too deep into spoilers, he is one of the reasons to watch this movie. One last thing I want to touch upon about the duels is that, because a lot it of won't make a ton of sense to new viewers of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", your best bet, as I have stated before is to watch the original series first, before even thinking about going into this movie. Just so you'll have a better idea of how the duels work. However, if you are going to run the risk of watching this movie first over the original series, then what I would do is shut your brain off when the duels are going on. Because that is the only way you're going to get some enjoyment out of those scenes.

Overall, guys, the writing, for the standards of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", is really good. It's not great, but it still works well enough. Now, let's get to the acting. If there is one thing I love about this movie, is that they brought back, almost, the entire cast, who worked over at 4Kids, that provided the voices from the original show. I say almost, because there is one actor who is absent here. For those that never watched the original series, Yugi's Grandfather, Solomon, was voiced by the late Maddie Blaustein. She was mostly known for voicing Meowth from Pokemon. And it does make sense that she doesn't make a return here, because she had, unfortunately, passed away well over a decade ago. Mind you, now, Yugi's Grandfather's only in the movie for about two scenes, and that's it. However, I still felt like it was worth mentioning. As for the rest of the cast, they come back here, and they still turn in a really good showing. And this is me being kinda biased in this area because, I grew up listening to their voice work as a child, and to hear their voices again kinda made me smile. So, I can definitely say, at least for me, the acting was great. I will say, however, that some of their voices sounded a little bit underplayed. Now, it could be because the characters have aged, and they wanted to mellow out some of their performances. But, as I said, it didn't really bother me, so I was able to give most of it a pass. Now, I understand that there are those who cannot stand this cast, either for petty reasons because they worked at 4Kids, or because they don't like to listen to English dubs. And I will say that the movie does provide an option in where you can watch it with the original Japanese language and subtitles. So if you have to watch it that way, you can go right ahead and not worry about watching the English dub. But setting aside my personal experience with the dub cast, I can definitely say the acting was really good, as is the dub.

Animation in this thing really solid. The art style here works perfectly. I kinda like how the characters look a little bit different, because now they have grown up and are ready to graduate. So, I can definitely say the character designs are great, as is the color palettes. This movie utilizes a ton of CG, mainly for stuff such as the Duel Monsters. And, for the most part, the CG is really solid. One thing that I should mention is that the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" series never utilized CG up until "Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's". And the CG in that show was pretty good, for a series that was incorporating CG in a, mostly, 2D show. The only thing that looked kinda off was the Duel Runners, because the Duel Runners in CG, especially with character models on them, looked a bit questionable. And while most of the CG in this movie is really solid, there is one or two monsters I could say that looked kinda shitty in CG. Such as the very first monster Yugi summons in his duel against Diva, and that monster looked rather bad. And the CG on the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, when you first see it, looks kinda ugly. And it could be seen as a little bit distracting. Beyond those two examples those, the CG is mostly good, so I can definitely say that animation, in both areas, looks great.

Sound-mix is mixed well. The music in this is the kinda thing you would hear from an episode of the original show. However, I will say that it's utilized better here, because I do remember watching the older show, and there were moments where the music would not let up and have many quiet moments. Here though, the music is definitely better. There is one piece of music, however, I need to mention. It's a scene where Yugi and his friends are at the mall and they're having ice cream. And as they're talking, you get to hear an instrumental version of a song called "One Card Short", which is a song that was used in "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie". And I thought that was a nice touch because, while it's not my favorite song from that soundtrack, it was nice to hear it again in this movie.

So, with all this being said, am I able to recommend "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions"? Only if you're a fan of "Yu-Gi-Oh!". I can't recommend it to non fans, and I certainly can't recommend it to anyone who hasn't watched the original show or played the trading card game. This movie, unfortunately, does not have much of a recommendation range from me. Because, as I've stated before, anyone who's going into this movie, and does not have any prior experience with "Yu-Gi-Oh!" are not going to understand any of the duels, or they might see the characters being bland to them. However, if you are a fan of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", and you've not had a chance to see this yet, then I can definitely recommend it. Or, if you're someone who has seen the show before on a casual basis, and if you're looking for a blast from the past, then definitely check it out. This movie is a very good way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise. And I'm definitely going to be holding onto this movie because, while I may have had some issues with it, I'm probably going to notice more things about the duels on my 2nd or 3rd viewing of this movie. I really enjoyed this thing. And while I may not be as big on the franchise nowadays, I'm still, probably, going to come back to this series by re-watching some of the older episodes online.

And, with that, guys, we come to the close of the 50th episode of Reaction & Review. Like I said before, I'm so happy I got to celebrate this milestone. And I certainly can't wait to see what the next 50 episodes have in store for me. But, for now, guys, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.