America ready for Yu-Gi-Oh! invasion
USA Today
Move over, Pikachu. Here comes Yu-Gi-Oh!
Say what? Pronounced You-gee-oh, it's the next pop-culture import from Japan, where it began five years ago as a simple comic strip. Since then, Japanese fans have snatched up more than $2 billion worth of Yu-Gi-Oh! stuff, including 23 million comics and video games and 3.5 billion cards.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! invasion in America officially starts Sept. 15, when the animated series begins airing as a Saturday morning cartoon on Kids WB.
The Pokemon franchise has grossed $15 billion outside Asia in the past four years.
Unlike Pokemon, which features cute and cuddly characters that kids love, Yu-Gi-Oh! has darker themes that appeal to an older crowd, from preteens to college students.
Yu-Gi-Oh! (translation: King of Games) follows the adventure of a Yugi, a small and geeky high school freshman picked on by bullies. But with the help of an ancient Egyptian puzzle given to him by his grandfather, Yugi morphs into a powerful alter ego who uses games to defeat his rivals.
The U.S. and European marketing and distribution rights to the franchise are held by 4Kids Entertainment, the same company that brought Pokemon to America.
"It's a clever concept that has really caught on among older boys because these monsters are a little more aggressive, a little more scary," says Alfred Kahn, chairman and CEO of 4Kids.
To get the word out about the cartoon series, 4Kids last week sent out 1 million Yu-Gi-Oh! welcome packets, including show clips, to gamers 10 and up.
"I don't like to make predictions, but I think the show has a lot of elements that will make it as appealing as Pokemon or X-Men," says Donna Friedman, vice president of programming for Kids WB. Friedman says there was a fierce bidding war among networks for the rights to the series.
Other upcoming products:
• Konami will release video games for Game Boy Color in November.
• The game cards, a kind of combination of Pokemon and "Magic: The Gathering," will be out early next year.
• Then comes a line of toys and apparel.
Thanks to the Internet, teens outside Japan have already begun discovering the franchise.
"Yu-Gi-Oh! is growing in popularity around the world because it has a fun plot, lovable characters and a card game that came from manga (Japanese comic novels)," says Brendan Hubbs, 17, of Columbia, Mo., who found the characters on a trip to Japan as an exchange student. He adds, "The only thing Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon share is the fact that Americans brought them over to make money."
After viewing a Webcast of the series on the Internet, 16-year-old Alisha Gleeson, of Sydney, Australia, "grew strangely addicted." She credits the appeal to "the whole gaming scenario, the characters, the plot and ... I love Yugi's hair!"
