Yu-Gi-Oh! (1998)
The little-known first adaptation, made by Toei before the card game took over. Shadow Games of every kind, a darker tone, and the origin of the "Season 0" nickname.
- Japanese title
- 遊☆戯☆王 (Yu☆Gi☆Oh!)
- Aired
- April 1998 – October 1998
- Episodes
- 27
- Studio
- Toei Animation
- Protagonist
- Yugi Mutou
- Ace card
- Dark Magician
- New mechanic
- None: predates the real card game's TCG release
The Story
Before the worldwide card-game phenomenon, there was a very different Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. Toei Animation's 1998 series adapts the earliest chapters of Kazuki Takahashi's manga, in which timid high schooler Yugi Mutou completes the ancient Millennium Puzzle and awakens a second, darker personality. Whenever Yugi or his friends are wronged, this other Yugi emerges to challenge the offender to a Shadow Game (a contest with supernatural stakes) and punishes the loser with a fitting Penalty Game.
Crucially, these games are not all card games. The early manga (and this series with it) is an anthology of deadly contests: dice, coin games, board games, Capsule Monster Chess, and only occasionally the card game that would later be called Duel Monsters. Seto Kaiba appears as a recurring rival obsessed with that card game, and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon already has its iconic status, but the series is at heart a dark urban-fantasy thriller rather than a tournament show.
Characters
The core cast is already in place: Yugi, his friends Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey), Hiroto Honda (Tristan), and Anzu Mazaki (Téa), plus anime-original schoolmate Miho Nosaka, who gets a much larger role here than in the manga. Kaiba (sporting green hair in this version) and the sinister Ryo Bakura with his Millennium Ring round out the major players.
Why You May Never Have Seen It
This series was never licensed or dubbed outside Japan. When the franchise was relaunched in 2000 with Studio Gallop's Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (the show the rest of the world simply knows as "Yu-Gi-Oh!"), the Toei series was left behind, which is why fans retroactively nicknamed it "Season 0". It is not a prequel or a first season of Duel Monsters: the 2000 series is a fresh adaptation that retells the story with the card game at its center.
Toei also produced a short theatrical film in 1999, notable for featuring a young duelist and his Red-Eyes Black Dragon. For most viewers, the 1998 series remains a curiosity, but it is a fascinating look at what Yu-Gi-Oh! was before the card game defined it.
Want to play like they do on screen? Learn the real rules in our beginner's guide or browse step-by-step combo guides reconstructed from actual duel replays.