Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagoness 遊☆戯☆王 プロタゴネース

Following the Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagonist 遊☆戯☆王 プロタゴニスト, I post an article that features the female leads, the protagonesses of all the seven series together, from DM (Duel Monsters), GX [Generation neXt], 5D's [5 Dragons], ZEXAL (Zeal), ARC-V (Arc Five), VRAINS [Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Network System] to SEVENS (Sevens), in which I will discuss about the characteristics, the paradigms of Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses.

Before I proceed to the topic, again, pertaining to the image above, it was made exclusively for this post. Likewise, the protagonesses in the image were all adapted from official sources. Mazaki Anzu was from the Duel Links mobile game, similarly eye colors modified to match those of the anime counterpart, while Tenjōin Asuka, Izayoi Aki, Mizuki Kotori, Hīragi Yuzu were all from the Tag Force video games, whereas Zaizen Aoi and Kirishima Romin were from the official anime character illustrations.
For the backgrounds, the gradient colors were not randomly picked, but picked in the way that they are pertinent to the protagonesses. Anzu is orange for her brown hair, for brown color is a kind of dark and muted orange color, Asuka is blue for the color of her color of clothing, the Obelisk Blue uniform, Aki is red-magenta for her color of clothing as well, the red-magenta Victorian-styled wardrobe, Kotori is green for her green hair, Yuzu is pink for her pink hair, Aoi is light-blue for that blue color is what associate with her best, with her name having similar sounding as blue color in Japanese, and also her aliases as Blue Angel, Blue Girl and Blue Maiden, lastly, Romin is purple for her purple-magenta hair.

Unlike the protagonists, the protagonesses have irregular patterns in what determine them as a Yu-Gi-Oh! protagoness.
At first, the protagonesses had their names started with the vowel "A" or「あ・ア」, as in Anzu, Asuka, and Aki, but since then Kotori deviated from the naming custom, which left some to view that Kōdzuki Anna as the proper protagoness, Yuzu also distinguished herself with her name, [also being the first protagoness to bear name started with the phonetic "Yu", although it is neither with kanji character, 「遊」nor with or long (doubled) vowel (denoted with a macron over the vowel in rōmaji)], then Aoi came back with the naming custom, and now Romin once again stray away from her predecessors with her given name.
It is noted that all the protagonesses used the same gender neutral first person pronoun, "watashi" 「私」, with the exception of Yuzu who uses a more feminine pronoun, "atashi" 「あたし」.

Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses has always been made to be the love interests of the protagonists, the romantic feelings may be reciprocated ambiguously, and unrequited, with the protagonesses' feelings outweighed the protagonists' feelings, due to the protagonists are usually oblivious, and/or indifferent about romance. This seemingly one-sided romantic setting between the protagonist and protagoness has been a paradigm, until the bland relationship between Yūsaku and Aoi, which did not develop into much of a romantic relationship.
It is a trope in Yu-Gi-Oh! that the protagonesses show jealousy for the protagonists whenever the other female characters approach the protagonists. And the protagonesses often have romantic rivalry with other female characters, contending for the affection of the protagonists, as in Anzu against Rebecca Hopkins for Yūgi, Asuka against Saotome Rei for Jūdai, Aki against Sherry LeBlanc for Yūsei, Kotori against Kōdzuki Anna and Cathy Katherine for Yūma, and Yuzu against Hōchun Mieru for Yūya, with the exception of Aoi again, alone in the competition for Yūsaku, if there is any to it.
While all the Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists are duelists, the protagonesses can be seen in two settings, as a full-fledged duelist, or as a fledgling duelist, more to be a cheerleader character. Asuka, Aki, Yuzu and Aoi belong to the first, as full-fledged duelists whereas Anzu, Kotori and seemingly Romin belong to the latter, as cheerleader characters.
Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses are generally portrayed with the stereotypical femininity, only with different degrees of nurturance, sensitivity, sweetness, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth, passivity, cooperativeness, expressiveness, modesty, humility, empathy, affection, tenderness, and being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding. It is a paradigm for the protagonesses to be eventually ended up with more feminine positive personalities and behaviors, such as being kind, gentle, sweet and caring, if they were not much, in the beginning.
The damsel in distress trope in Yu-Gi-Oh! has been recurrent to present the protagonesses in archetypal femininity, only to be rescued by the protagonists. All the protagonesses have been depicted as damsels in distress at least once, the nature of distress differs, ranged from the classic being captured, being hold hostages, to being put at stake, but mind-controlled or brainwashed being the one that happened to all the protagonesses, as in Anzu by Marik Ishtar of Ghouls, Asuka by Manjōme Jun of Hikari no Kessha, Aki, sort of, by Divine of Arcadia Movement, Kotori by Girag of Varian, Yuzu by Doktor of Duel Academia, and Aoi/Blue Angel by Specter of Hanoi no Kishi.
While it can be said that the personalities of the protagonesses are cast in the same mold, they still have their own unique personality traits that set them apart. Anzu cherishes camaraderie, caring a lot for the bonds with Yūgi and the gang, as shown in their Peace no Wa/Ring of Peace 「ピースの輪」 and is committed to her dream, working her way to become a professional dancer. Asuka is confident, comprehensibly with her skills and beauty, and clever, being the top Obelisk Blue exemplary student. Aki is solicitous, caring for those close to her whenever possible, and sedulous, which work her way well to be a decent doctor. Kotori is uxorial and faithful, always stay by the side of Yūma, supporting him and managing his needs, such as Duel Meshi/Duel Meals「デュエル飯」, which makes her a virtuous wife-to-be. Yuzu is defensive, tends to stand up for others, protecting those close to her, and she is irascible, easily annoyed by Yūya's antics, and lashed out with her paper fan. Aoi is multifarious, while she is passive in real life, she becomes a different persona, active and uplifting as Blue Angel, reserved as Blue Girl, and refined as Blue Maiden.

Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses has always been made to be somewhat the eye candies of the show, with different ranges of attractiveness, from mediocre to marvelous beauty, Anzu, and Aoi are made to be mediocre, whereas Asuka, Aki, Kotori, Yuzu and Romin are marvelous, with their physical attractiveness arranged in the exact descending name order.
The attractiveness order is based on Asian beauty standards for females, which prioritize features like small face with small delicate jaw, aesthetically oval shaped faces with a defined chin, large eyes with the double eyelids or supratarsal eyelid crease, small straight narrow noses with sharply defined tips, and small full lip with well-defined cupid’s bow, flawless smooth skin with fair skin tone, body shape with moderately large sized breasts, small waist, curvaceous thighs, and a figure with proper proportion of the three.

Likewise, there are also some noticeable paradigms in the appearances of Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses. However, unlike the protagonists, the protagonesses do not have outlandish hairstyles, at most they have tolerably ordinary two-tone hairdos, as in Kotori and Yuzu. All of the protagonesses have strands or locks of hair fringes that fall over their foreheads, with the exception of Aki, who rolls up her front fringes. They all have long hair, ranged from shoulder length to mid back length, adhering to the culture of long hair, a societally structured form of female sexual dimorphism.
For the patterns of other parts of the character designs, the head designs of the protagonesses are rather expansive, due to their luxuriant hairs.
For the face shapes, the protagonesses have rather round and somewhat heart face shapes.
While the protagonesses all have relatively small faces, still the face sizes of the protagonists are all distinctive based on their physique proportion, ages in Kotori's, Yuzu's and Romin's cases, making the impression that these protagonesses have bigger face sizes.

Further to the facial features, all protagonesses of Yu-Gi-Oh! have big and bright eyes, which have always been with the double eyelids, the presence of supratarsal eyelid creases. The double eyelids range from long prominent creases to short ambiguous creases.
Aside the eyes, other facial features like the nose and mouth follow the common conventional anime character design iconography.
Most of the protagonesses have different-sized but similar pointy noses portrayed by straight lines and slender wedge shapes, with the exception of Romin due to art style change, her nose is almost simplified to nothingness.
Whereas their mouths are small, depicted by a short, thin but uneven smooth line. Depending to the illustrators, sometimes their lips are more well-defined.

All Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses have fine skin texture. Whereas for the skin tone, all Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses spot light skin tones, ranged from pale to fair, with varying shades, Anzu is with fair skin tone, whereas Asuka is with pale skin, Aki is with fair skin, Kotori is with fair skin, and then Yuzu is with pale skin, Aoi is with pale skin, and Romin is with fair skin.

For the body, Yu-Gi-Oh! protagoness are all with slender figure, with some of them having fats distributed and deposited pleasantly in the particular areas, specifically the breasts.
The earlier protagonesses are all full-bosomed, Anzu, Asuka, and Aki, with the bust sizes increased in the exact ascending name order. This seemingly patterned characteristic came to an end with the appearance of Kotori who is flat-chested, understandably due to still in her pubescent period. The small bust sizes continued to be a contemporary characteristic of the succeeding protagonists, Yuzu, Aoi and Romin.
The protagonesses are with average statures, when compared with the females of the same age group in the show, but fall short when compared with the males of the same age group, not some of the protagonists though.
There are cases where the protagonesses are taller than the protagonists, Anzu was taller than Yūgi, and Asuka was taller than the earlier Jūdai by a bit, same for Yuzu to Yūya. Still, there are protagonists are taller than the females, such as Yūsei is taller than Aki, likewise for Yūma to Kotori, and Yūsaku to Aoi.
This somewhat play into the sexual dimorphism where females are taller, on average, than males in early adolescence, but males, on average, surpass them in height in later adolescence and adulthood.

In the aspect of outfits, Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonesses are all stylish to an extent, thanks to the sophisticated sense of fashion of their character designers.
The cheerleader protagonesses have extensive wardrobe, they do not stick to any usual casual outfit and wears several throughout the series, namely, Anzu, and Kotori. Whereas the duelist protagonesses tend to stick to the same outfits during most of their onscreen, namely, Asuka, Aki, and Aoi, although they did change into other outfits occasionally, corresponding to casual situation, for instances, for home, for outing, for riding, as in and formal situations, for instances, for school, for party. Yuzu is an unique case that throughout the series, she receives several changes of clothes for each season or different stages, or more to be different dimensions that she was in.
The protagonesses usually conform to the proper ways of wearing, particularly the school uniforms, as in Anzu, and Asuka, Aki and Kotori, who wear their uniforms the same ways like anyone else, with the exception of Yuzu who does not wear the jacket and notably accessorized with a green musical note collar clip, while Aoi wears her uniform properly albeit accessorized with a pink heart-shaped tie clip.
Typically, especially these days, female outfits are designed to be more sexual than male outfits, which accentuate or expose the female body for the fact that the curvaceous feminine body shape associated with nature, nurturing, and reproduction is attractive.
Nevertheless, the protagonesses are not scantily clad, many of them have themselves covered up well, with the exception with Aki, who shows off more of her skin, her glamorous bust, cleavage and curves.
Nonetheless, the rest of the protagonesses do not dress exactly modestly, referencing to their representative upperwears, usually skin-tight fitting, sleeveless or short-sleeved shirts as in Asuka, Kotori, Yuzu and Romin, revealing their slender shoulders and slim arms, also smooth armpits occasionally, although some wear shirts with jackets and/or jumpers, as in Anzu, and Aoi, which covered themselves up well.
Usually layered outfits like these make one look boxy and less feminine, as in Anzu and Aoi, but this is sort out with their miniskirts, which it is a common consensus among all protagonesses to clad in micro-miniskirts, revealing their lean legs below their mid-thigh. Skirt, especially miniskirt can add sufficient volume to the hips and make the protagonesses look endearing and engrossing.
Aside that, neckties with ribbon knot and long knot are recurrent stylish fashion can be seen in the usual outfits of the protagonesses, such as Anzu, Kotori, Yuzu and Aoi. Hosiery, ranged from full tights, thigh-high to knee-high are also common for the protagonesses, with the exception of Asuka who does not seem to wear socks.
Aside the clothings, some of the protagonesses sport accessories like pendants, chokers, bracelets, gloves, belts, high-heeled pumps, shoes, boots, and so on. With Yuzu being the first protagonesses to be accessorized with an item, specifically a bracelet, which serves as the plot devices of the ARC-V series.

In spite of similarities and distinctive differences, all the protagonesses of Yu-Gi-Oh! have a variety of visual appeals.

In the end, it's time for disclosing one of the iDuelist's Dream.
After SEVENS, and after then, hopefully there will have a protagoness named "Yūme" 「夢」, which can be a florid and flowery name for females.
It is one of the iDuelist's Dreams that a Yu-Gi-Oh! protagoness with this name that derived of dream won't be only a dream.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagonist 遊☆戯☆王 プロタゴニスト

Yu-Gi-Oh! has finally arrived to its seventh series in the franchise, from DM (Duel Monsters), GX [Generation neXt], 5D's [5 Dragons], ZEXAL (Zeal), ARC-V (Arc Five), VRAINS [Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Network System] to SEVENS (Sevens).
To commemorate this, I post an article that features the protagonists of all the seven series together, in which I will discuss about the characteristics, the paradigms of Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists.

Before I proceed to the topic, pertaining to the image above, it was made exclusively for this post.
The protagonists in the image were all adapted from official sources.
Mutō Yūgi (Yami Yūgi) was from the Duel Links mobile game, hair and eye colors modified to match those of the anime counterpart, while Yūki Jūdai, Fudō Yūsei, Tsukumo Yūma, Sakaki Yūya were all from the Tag Force video games, whereas Fujiki Yūsaku and Ōdō Yūga were from the official anime character illustrations.
For the backgrounds, the gradient colors were not randomly picked, but picked in the way that they are pertinent to the protagonists.
Yūgi is purple for his purple-magenta hair, and being the keeper of darkness, Jūdai is red for the color of his choice of clothing, the Osiris Red jacket and his enthusiastic personality, Yūsei is dark-blue for his blue jacket and his calm personality, Yūma is magenta for his prominent red-magenta spiked hair and his energetic personality, Yūya is green for that the green prominent part of his hair and his lively personality, Yūsaku is light-blue for his prominent light-blue bangs with pink accents and cold personality, lastly, Yūga is orange for his seemingly fiery fervor, also for that his red-orange hair, although that's not the prominent part of his hairstyle.

Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists have numerous noteworthy patterns.
Above all, the most notable pattern for the protagonists of Yu-Gi-Oh! is in their names.
Name is an significant aspect in Yu-Gi-Oh!, which we can see this in the card game as well, as a card series or category is designated by the card names, and that in the name of the pharaoh, "Atem", Atem summoned Horakhty and won against Zorc.
All Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists have the kanji character, 「遊」, phonetic "Yū", in their names, in the same manner to "Yu" 「遊」 of Yu-Gi-Oh! 遊☆戯☆王, with the exception of Jūdai, who doesn't have his name starts with "Yū", instead he has his surname, "Yūki" 「遊城」, which starts with "Yū", also Yūsaku has an alias, Playmaker, which he is referred to most of the time, is without the prefix "Yū", albeit the "Play" part of the alias, convey the same connotation as the kanji character, 「遊」 which has the meanings, "Play".
It is also worth noting all the protagonists used first person pronoun, "ore" 「俺」 at some point, the vessel Yugi uses "boku" 「僕」 to refer to himself, but the dark counterpart uses "ore" 「俺」, then Yuya regularly uses "ore" 「俺」but switches to "watashi" 「私」 when saying his performing phrases. This  "ore" 「俺」tradition has however been broke with Yuga uses "boku" 「僕」 instead.

Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists can be placed in two types of personality paradigms, namely the "serious" ones, Yūgi, the later Jūdai, Yūsei and Yūsaku belong to this one, and the "insouciant" ones, the earlier Jūdai, Yūma, Yūya and Yūga as well.
The "insouciant" protagonists have their exclusive catchphrases that they repeat regularly, such as Jūdai's "Gotcha" 「 ガッチャ」,  Yūma's "Kattobingu"「かっとビング」, Yūya's "Ladies and gentlemen" 「レディース・アンド・ジェントルメン」and  "O tanoshimi wa korekarada/Enjoy it now"「お楽しみはこれからだ」. Whereas the "serious" protagonists have more communal catchphrases such as Yūgi's "Ore no Turn/My Turn"「俺のターン」, Yūsei's "Riding Duel, Acceleration"「ライディング・デュエル、アクセラレーション」 and Yūsaku's "Into the Vrains" 「イントゥ・ザ・ヴレインズ」.
The protagonists all have their positive personality traits, the vessel Yūgi is known for his kindness, while the dark counterpart is purposeful, confident and intelligent, Jūdai is funny, optimistic and confident, Yūsei is altruistic, sensible and intelligent, Yūma is funny, sincere and persistent, Yūya is funny, cheerful and exertive, and Yūsaku is individualistic, confident and intelligent. The one common traits of all protagonists is that they all are righteous in their own definition, in their deeds, while upholding what it meant to be a true duelist.

In addition to the personalities, there are also noticeable paradigms in the appearances of Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists.
First and foremost, Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists all have outlandish hairstyles, mostly multicolored. The protagonists have been trying to outdo each other with their outlandish hairstyles.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! hairdo legacy lives on in its several successor series. In most case, the protagonist will have the most conspicuous hair among all the others.
With Yūgi still stays relevant to be one of the most egregious example, after Yūma and Yūsaku.
Jūdai is the only notable deviation, with tolerably ordinary two-tone brown.
Interestingly, the fandom associates the Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists with aquatic lives based on the hairstyles, Yūgi to starfish, Judai to jellyfish, Yūsei to crab, Yūma to shrimp and Yūya to sea anemone for uniformity, instead of tomato, Yūsaku to lobster, and Yūga to squid.

For the patterns of other parts of the character designs, not noticed by many, is that the head designs of the protagonists tends to be expansive. If one are to draw a circle by using any protruding point of the head of any protagonist, including the hair, it can be discerned that the circle will always ended up as a large circle and a large portion of the circle will be occupied by the head, making the impression that the protagonists have big heads.
Furthermore, for the face shapes, the protagonists mostly have rather round face shapes, compared to their rivals who always have oval or oblong face shapes. With the exception of Yūsaku who has slimmer and longer face shape.
Whereas the face sizes of the protagonists are all distinctive based on their physique proportion, short stature in Yūgi's case, and ages in Yūma's, Yuya's and Yūga's cases, making these protagonists have bigger face sizes.

Further to the facial features, all protagonists of Yu-Gi-Oh! have big and bright eyes, which have always been without the double eyelids, a double eyelid is the presence of a supratarsal eyelid crease, until the appearance of Yūya who spots creases over his eyes.
This is due to the fact that Yūya's character design is not done by Kazuki Takahashi-sensei but by Naohito Miyoshi-san. The creases continued to be a contemporary characteristic of the succeeding protagonists, Yūsaku and Yūga.
Aside the eyes, other facial features like the nose and mouth follow the common conventional anime character design iconography.
Most of the protagonists have different-sized but similar pointy noses portrayed by straight lines and slender wedge shapes, with the exception of Yūga due to art style change, his nose is almost simplified to nothingness.
Whereas their mouths are usually small when without any expressions, depicted by a short, thin but uneven smooth line, until the appearance of Yūma who seemingly has wider mouth. The wider mouth continued to be a contemporary characteristic of the succeeding protagonists, Yūya, Yūsaku and Yūga. Depending to the illustrators, sometimes their lips are more well-defined.

Most Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists have fine skin texture. With the exception of Yūsei who has been through a lot physically, got his skin damaged in the process, more so when compared to the others.
Whereas for the skin tone, Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists spot varying skin tones, Yūgi is with fair skin tone, whereas Jūdai is with fairly fair skin, Yūsei is with tan skin, Yūma is with light tan skin, and then Yūya is back with fair skin, Yūsaku is with fair skin, and Yūga is with fairly fair skin.

For the body, Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists are usually with slender figure, but there are protagonists with pretty muscular builds such as Yami Yūgi, the later Jūdai, and Yūsei.
On top of that, the protagonists are always with short or at most average statures, more so when compared with their rivals, as in Yūgi to Kaiba Seto, Jūdai to Marufuji Ryō, Yūsei to Jack Atlas, Yūma to Tenjō Kaito, Yūya to Akaba Reiji, Yūsaku to Kōgami Ryōken, Yūga to Kamijō Tatsuhisa, and there are cases where the protagonists are shorter than the protagonesses, Yūgi was way shorter than Anzu, take no account of the illusional height due to his illustrious hair, and the earlier Jūdai was shorter than Asuka a bit, same for Yūya to Yuzu. However, there are cases where the protagonists are taller than the protagonesses, such as Yūsei is taller than Aki, likewise for Yūma to Kotori, and Yūsaku to Aoi.

In the aspect of outfits, Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists are all stylish to an extent, thanks to the sophisticated sense of fashion of their character designers.
The protagonists have been distinctive for their choices of clothing, if not for their colors of clothing.
Usually, the outfits of the preceding protagonist are inclined to be inspired by the predecessors, for instances, Yūya's is based on Yūgi's, Yūsei's is embellished equivalent of Jūdai's, but to stand out and avoid complete clothing clash with the preceding protagonists, they have different colors of clothing instead. Every once in a while, newfangled fashions like those of Yūma and Yūga still come about as novelty.
As for the pattern, so far, for their regular attires, all the protagonists wear outerwears, usually collared jackets, as in Yūgi, the later Jūdai and Yūsei, their jackets are with rather long side slits which always fold up and flare out.
The jackets are usually of school uniforms which most of the time worn in distinguishing ways, for example, Yūgi usually wear his Domino High School jacket unbuttoned and occasionally wear it over his shoulders like a cape, and the earlier Jūdai wear Osiris Red jacket unbuttoned, and the later Jūdai wear a longer variant of Osiris Red jacket that flares out more.
Also, the subsequent protagonists take on the outerwear trend, similarly, collared jacket in Yūsei's case, hooded vest in Yūma's case, Maiami Second Junior High School jacket in Yūya's case which he wears it as a cape in the similar style as Yūgi, Den City High School jacket in Yūsaku's case, and hooded jacket in Yūga's case.
For the innerwear, the shirts worn underneath by the protagonists are usually sleeveless, except for Jūdai which has long sleeves shirt, and Yūya which has short sleeves shirt.
For the lowerwear, the protagonists have all been wearing trousers, until the appearance of Yūga, who being the first to sport shorts instead. The protagonists usually wear slim-fit trousers, but there are variants of trousers such as bell-bottoms worn by Yūma, and baggy pants worn by Yūya.
Aside the clothings, the protagonists sport accessories like goggles, pendants, chokers, pads, bands, gloves, belts, shoes, boots, and so on.
Pendants are recurrent features of Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists inspired by the original series, which serves as the plot devices of the particular series. Yūgi wears a millennium pendant, Sennen Puzzle, Yūma wears a key pendant, Ou no Kagi, as then, Yūya wears a pendulum pendant, Tamashii no Pendulum. Jūdai also wore a amulet pendant, a Yami no Item, only during the Seven Star Arc. Something noteworthy is that all Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists have their own form of plot devices, they may not be in the form of objects, for instances, in Yūsei's case, he has the Dragon Head birthmark of the Akakiryuu no Aza instead, and in Yūsaku's case, he has Ai, the Yami no Ignis, an artificial intelligence with free will. Aside from these, needless to say, the Duel Monsters cards used by the protagonists have always been the plot device of Yu-Gi-Oh! unequivocally.

In spite of similarities and distinctive differences, all the protagonists of Yu-Gi-Oh! have a variety of visual appeals.

In the end, it's time for disclosing one of the iDuelist's Dream.
After SEVENS, and after then, hopefully there will have a protagonist named "Yūme" 「遊目」, phonetic "Yūme" 「ゆうめ」 sounds alike to "dream" 「夢」 in Japanese.  It is such a coincidence that "dream" 「夢」 also starts with the phonetic, "Yu" 「ゆ」 although without the prolonged "u" 「う」sound .
It is one of the iDuelist's Dreams that a Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist with this name that derived of dream won't be only a dream.

Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS Teaser Trailer Review 遊☆戯☆王ＳＥＶＥＮＳ ティーザートレーラーレビュー

STORY
In the not-so-distant future, Goha City is governed by its largest corporation, “Goha Corp”, everything from schooling, to Dueling rules, to much of daily life.
Ōdō Yūga who attends Goha 7th Elementary School, is a 5th grader who develops inventions every day that he calls “Roads”. Yūga, who thinks the way Duels are run by adults are way too rigid and uncool, decides to change this world which is too cramped for kids, comes up with a new rule set everyone can enjoy, and battles with his road “Rush Duel” while believing in his creations.

In the days that follow, Rook in the next class over hears the rumor of a “King of Duels”. Investigating this with Yūga, they run into a mysterious person standing before an important monument… …
In order to be recognized as a King of Duels, you’ve gotta win Duels within a limited time!

“The Road I Dreamed Up, “Rush Duels” Can Do It!”
The story of Yuga and Rook, two young boys about to overturn the world of rigid unfun Duels with a new style is about to begin!!

And so, the seventh installment of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series has finally revealed during the Jump Fiesta today, along with many info about the upcoming changes.
Good to have the Fusion, Synchro and Xyz Monsters summonable from the Extra Deck to the Main Monster Zones once again, no needing of Link Monsters.
What got us hyped more and most is of course, the info about the seventh Yu-Gi-Oh! series, which is titled Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS (遊☆戯☆王ＳＥＶＥＮＳ).
The reaction and reception of fans for this newcomer were the same as for all installments, for now, SEVENS wasn't very well-received by fans, in fact, it's so far the worst-received Yu-Gi-Oh! installment at first of all times.
I understand how is it so. But still, I'll review in a good light.

• Name
Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS, an eponymous name since this is the seventh installment. As the protagonist is akin to a creator, the number seven couldn't be more appropriate due to the seven days of creation.
The name of the protagonist, Ōdō Yūga (王道 遊我) is very well-thought. The name means "royal road, my game", befitting to the setting of Yūga to be a self-center creator of his own rules, which he calls them "Roads".

• Art
The anime art styles has apparently changed to one unlike those of Yu-Gi-Oh!, simplified, which seen by fans as the lack of budget on the production side. The truth is that the animation studio has changed from Studio Gallop to Studio Bridge. Studio Bridge animated animes such as Cardfight!! Vanguard G: Z, which explains how similar the art style is to those of the Vanguard series. Without the flairs of Studio Gallop, the life-long Yu-Gi-Oh! animation studio until now, SEVENS seemingly loses the very vibe of being a Yu-Gi-Oh! anime.

• Design
The logo design of SEVENS is said to be a teaser logo, a placeholder for the time being. The completed logo is probably going to have the number "7" as the motif in the middle along with the "Yu-Gi-Oh! text design.
The character designs of SEVENS are decent that the characters revealed so far are vivid and pleasing to the eyes. However, the common designs failed to appeal to most fans. Moreover, many find it hard to accept how the characters are now more children than ever.
The monster designs for now is not so pleasant, for one, "Sevens Road Magician" looks preposterous, the out-of-proportion figure and the shady face doesn't hold up at all. Let's hope there will be a true ace monster for Yūga, the one with 2500 attack stat. "Blue Eyes White Dragon" being remade and summoned by a random character has sparked an outrage among fans, viewed as dishonoring the legacy.
The Duel Disk design is commendable for its creative convertible feature, capable of changing from five card slots to three, resembling the number "7" in the process.

• Concept
This time, there was no new summoning method being introduced along with the anime, instead new rules of Dueling were introduced.
Like its predecessors, SEVENS introduced a different forms of Dueling known as "Rush Duel". Unlike its predecessors however is that this Rush Duel will be released for real but different from OCG Standard Duel.
This is an extensive effort by KONAMI to commercialize to the child demographic, understandably, the present game has became too complicated for the kids to catch up, thus a whole new game got made up for them.
To play Rush Duel, one will have to use the Rush Duel cards, cards with whole new layout inscribed with "Rush Duel" at the center bottom of the lore text box.
The Rush Duel card layout is decent, while many averse to it, there are also those who find them acceptable. Many changes were made, the art box got expanded, allowing the card illustration to be viewed in greater details, and alignment for the Level and Stats has moved to below the art box, the Level is now straightforward with a number instead of multiple stars to be counted, and the text font also changed to that of square style, which satisfyingly homogenized proportions are well-suited to digital and technological theme of the contemporary Yu-Gi-Oh!.
For an eleven years old kid to accomplish this Road, aside from making the Rush Duel cards, he must have also modified the Duel Disk to fit for the Rush Duel format, all of these seemingly implausible. Let's hope that there will be proper explanation on how a child achieving all these, without the overlook of Goha Corp.

CONCLUSION
In the end, one will have buy to play, KONAMI being Komoney at its best. I'll not be investing in these Rush Duel, perhaps at most collecting some copies of the Rush Duel cards, I have a hunch that these Rush Duel cards will be sort of obsolete after SEVENS era ended, like the way Link Monsters ended up aftermath of VRAINS era.
I'll still give the SEVENS anime a go, it has its potential, intriguing point that the protagonist is a game changer, literally.