The research for Ash VS Yugi was IMMENSE, so the researchers have put together a huge Q&A blog that covers how they approached the epiusode. So big it'll take multiple posts!
Of course, BIG SPOILERS for Ash VS Yugi, if you haven't seen it yet!
Not exactly. Technically a Shadow Game can be any challenge Atem chooses. However, in the early manga it was almost always a challenge the opponent had some understanding of, and it was always on a relatively even playing field. Atem would play loose with the rules to win, but never did anything as extreme as invoking a rule like, ‘Ash cannot breathe for this fight’, or ‘Heads I win, tails Ash loses’.
It doesn’t matter for this match. Yugi doesn’t need to resort to a tactic like this to win. He can just defeat Ash in a fight fairly.
Ash resists mind manipulation, and Mind Crush is meant to banish the darkness/evil within someone’s heart. Which doesn’t really fit Ash’s MO. Granted, Penalty Games have been inflicted on people who aren’t evil, there is a soul component to them (since mind and soul are synonymous in Yu-Gi-Oh), and it’s questionable if Ash could resist this. At worst, Lucario’s Aura might protect him.
Aura has been used to interact with spirits in the past. (JNS05) If Aura can interact with spirits, its barrier could, in-theory, shield against attacks that target or manipulate one’s spirit as well. While Ash has never made an Aura forcefield, and isn’t practiced enough with Aura to do so, his Lucario could. Ash has also seen other Aura users like Riley create Aura forcefields, so he knows the technique exists.
The move clearly affects Kaiba’s evil side (it’s stated as such), at least in the manga. Kaiba is still a dickhead afterwards, but he’s never done anything quite as sadistic as hiring a serial killer and armed mercenaries to murder Yugi post-Mind Crush. Even assuming the move would work, Atem doesn’t resort to them from the get go.
No, he says he destroyed the evil in Kaiba’s heart in the original manga too. (Yu-Gi-Oh, Chapter 40)
The fight with Zorc shows that Exodia, while very strong, is not completely invincible and can be overcome with enough raw power.
Yes, but Zorc still overpowered him. The fact that Zorc wasn’t OBLITERATED (™) off the bat disproves Exodia being invincible in every facet. Yubel also overpowered Amon’s manifestation of Exodia before their Duel. (GX 149)
Exodia and Horakhty are auto-win cards in the game, and should have a lot of good hax resistances, bypasses, and immunities. But it would be a no-limits fallacy to say their infinite power extends to all of fiction. There are plenty of characters who could reasonably just out-muscle them on account of being ‘more infinite’, despite how strong they are.
Having said that, Horakhty, at least from a cosmological standpoint, is more powerful than anything Ash’s Pokémon scale to.
The statement in question is likely early series weirdness (Season 0, Ep 17) because it doesn’t make much sense. Atem is 3000 years old, not 5000, and he was dormant for most of that time.
Probably not. Ash’s Pokémon resist mind manipulation and would be unaffected by them. Resurrecting them to Yugi’s side of the field with Monster Reborn probably wouldn’t work for the same reason. Granted, Duel Monsters have resistances to mind manipulation as well, but can still be affected by cards like Brain Control.
However, assuming it would work, Ash can always return a Pokémon to their Poké Ball to undo mental effects. (DP019) Doing this undoes Confusion in the Pokémon games and anime, and is similar to how Duelists can stop mind manipulating effects on monsters by returning the card to their hand or deck.
This interpretation is too literal and contradicts how spell, trap, and monster effects are shown to work outside of the card game.
A card like Mirror Force would best be compared with Pokémon moves like Quick Attack, which goes first in most circumstances, or Aerial Ace, which always hits no matter what in the mainline Pokémon games. Obviously this doesn't mean they are completely impossible to dodge under every circumstance since we see characters dodge and react to these moves in the Pokémon anime. Spells, traps, and monster effects work the same way.
In the card game, Hinotama automatically inflicts 500 damage to an opponent’s life points if they don’t have a card to block it. Outside the card game, it’s a fireball that, while powerful, can be dodged. (5D’s, Episode 60)
In the card game, Slifer's effect lets him Lightning Bullet anything summoned and either auto-delete the monster or greatly reduce its attack points. In a 'real time' setting like the Ka/Ba battles, this isn't the case. Characters can dodge and react to Lightning Bullet.
Even in the card game the stronger monster will sometimes dodge the attack of a weaker monster before destroying them. (GX, Episode 86)
So in theory, most card and monster effects can be dodged.
The same idea applies to destruction effects. Several destruction effects could be interpreted as hax that bypass conventional defenses, but most are just very powerful attacks. Thousand Knives is exactly what’s shown: A horde of knives summoned for Dark Magician to shish kabob a target.
The fact that these effects can theoretically destroy even monsters with good regen, that can’t be destroyed in conventional combat, is interesting. But most of the attacks could reasonably be blocked or dodged by a strong or fast enough character. Though Ash’s Pokémon all fall safely in the stat range of what spell, trap, and monster effects have destroyed. Against much of Ash’s roster, many of these effects could be argued to be very effective, if not one-shot attacks if they connect.
Probably not. In Yu-Gi-Oh GX, it’s established that there are 11 dimensions connected to the human world, including the Duel Monsters Spirit World. Yubel’s plot is to merge all these universes together using Super Polymerization, calling them ‘Twelve Dimensional Universes’.
On paper, the word ‘dimensional’ would indicate they’re referring to spatial dimensions. The kanji in the Japanese subs is one that can be used for spatial dimensions. However, it’s just as likely these 12 universes are parallel universes.
There’s no diagram or other supporting evidence for these worlds being higher dimensions. An online blog argued that several episodes of GX proved they were, but we watched every episode, and even went back to check the timestamps the blog mentioned. Then went through the English transcripts in case it was something the dub mentioned. We found nothing.
We’re also shown a radar meant to track the 12 universes, and they’re portrayed as equal in size, as well as parallel to each other.
This doesn’t completely disprove spatial dimensions being involved, but we erred on the side of caution in this case. There isn’t enough evidence to definitively prove anything in terms of dimensional tiering by most standards.
Yes. Transcend Game and Dark Side of Dimensions are very blatant, and we have a lot of insight into Yu-Gi-Oh’s cosmology from other sources. Yu-Gi-Oh’s author, Kazuki Takahashi, stated there are infinite parallel universes in one of the guidebooks.
“(The Multiverse Theory):
The scene around the beginning of the movie is an image of the multiverse theory, which says that there is an infinite number of universes other than the one we are in, and that there is another you in another universe, and that both these universes and you exist in an infinite number.”
The stories of Duel Monster cards are part of Yu-Gi-Oh’s anime as a whole. Characters like the Dark Scorpion Bandits have appeared in episodes. They are a part of its ‘Endless Worlds’ where characters and monsters featured in the card game reside. (Yu-Gi-Oh OCG Stories, Chapter 20, Pg 2)
The Duel Links system appears in the Transcend Game manga, and connects Yu-Gi-Oh’s infinite timelines. Pegasus from the anime timeline describes it as "uniting the worlds and timelines" like threads. Other dialogue from Paradox is more clear cut, saying it is a world that connects many multiverses, not just one.
"And this world is a singularity that connects many multiverses."
Something that contains and connects infinite timelines would need to be a bigger set of infinity to our 4th dimensional universe and therefore a bulk space.
In 5D’s, there exists a ‘World of Speed’ beyond time and space, within which all possibilities are contained and equal, through which someone can harness the power of ‘Momentum’ (basically energy that controls reality) to open new possibilities. (5D’s, Episode 107)
Between the Afterlife and the Duel Links world is the Prana Realm and a realm of pure darkness. (DSoD, 32:28) The Transcend Game manga establishes that Yu-Gi-Oh’s Afterlife is a higher dimension that exists beyond the realm of the living and the Prana Realm. (Transcend Game, Chapter 2, Pg 6) And in Zexal, there exists the Astral World, a higher dimensional space said to transcend the human world.
This would at minimum give Yu-Gi-Oh a 7-D cosmology, and Horakhty would safely scale to it, since she is the creator goddess who birthed reality in an explosion of light. (DSoD) After reclaiming his true name, Atem became the ruler of the Afterlife, being empowered by and having complete control of it.
Through Speed World, Zexal’s Astral World, and various other dimensions you could argue it goes even higher, but currently it’s unclear how they exist in relation to dimensions like the Afterlife. We know with reasonable certainty the Prana Realm encompasses Duel Links, because Kaiba confronts Prana, who blocks off his path while attempting to ascend using the Duel Links system and it’s stated to be between dimensions. And we know the Afterlife is above the Prana Realm/Darkness because the villains of Dark Side of Dimensions want to reach the Afterlife.
However, as far as it relates to this match, it’s just icing on the cake. 7-D or higher would surpass what Ash scales to.
Aigami/Diva explicitly states he is bringing Kaiba into 'my plane' when they Duel (DSoD), referring to the Prana Realm, then states the field in question is a space in between dimensions. Those two dimensions being the human world and the Afterlife, calling it a ‘Dimensional Duel’. This space being transcendent is backed up by the nature of Kaiba and Aigami’s Duel. Where they can ‘dimension summon’ high level monsters, regardless of cost, and the degree to which they can increase that monster’s power is tied to their own willpower. (DSoD) It’s another rule variant of Duel Monsters, where the power of one’s consciousness is tied to the power of their monsters.
A recurring theme in Transcend Game and Dark Side of Dimensions is that higher levels of consciousness equates to higher levels of dimensionality. Sera states as such (Transcend Game, Chapter 2, Page 10) before Kaiba uses the Duel Links system to gather the consciousness of everyone linked to it, then infinitely amplify it in an attempt to ascend to the Afterlife (Transcend Game, Chapter 2, Page 12), but he is stopped by the Prana. Sera acts as the avatar of the Prana, and claims she is a being of superior consciousness that Kaiba must surpass for him to access the Afterlife. (Transcend Game, Chapter 2, Page 15)
Basically, the Prana Realm is the mid-point between the human world and the Afterlife, but it, the Prana, and the hive mind they form are still dimensionally transcendent.
One viewpoint claims various worlds in Pokémon are higher dimensions, then has them encompass one another like a nesting doll, going:
The problem being there aren’t any statements or solid evidence that would make most of these worlds higher dimensional. Palkia’s Spatial World is of unknown size and is described as parallel to ours. The highest you could argue is it’s 4-D. Unlike Yu-Gi-Oh’s Afterlife, Pokémon’s Afterlife is just treated as another dimension, not a higher realm entirely. The River of Time for Dialga is just time itself. The actual concept, not a transcendent space. The Distortion World or ‘Reverse World’ is described as ‘the other side of our world’ and is not stated to be transcendent anywhere. It would just be a parallel space equal to ours. It is described as lacking time and space, which is interesting. But this likely is more-so a property of what Giratina represents, rather than a statement of his world being higher dimensional. In the same way Dialga represents time and Palkia represents space, Giratina represents antimatter, the absence of time and space.
Ultra Space is probably legit. It’s a bit of a headache in how it works, but we know it’s been able to connect between different dimensions, timelines, and even alternate game worlds like Emerald. It’s how Anabel arrived in the Gen 7 games, where she describes being in charge of a tower before going into an Ultra Wormhole. That ‘tower’ being the Battle Tower from Emerald. Meaning it’d be big enough to connect and contain infinite timelines / universes, making it a bulk space in a similar concept to Yu-Gi-Oh’s Duel Links system.
Arceus' Realm is legitimate as well. It’s directly stated to be beyond time and space, meaning it should be a higher dimension, beyond even Ultra Space (outerversal arguments notwithstanding). But it would only scale to True Form Arceus.
This nesting doll set-up also assumes all these realms stack neatly on top of each other. For comparison, we omitted the Astral World, The World of Speed, and tons of other spaces in Yu-Gi-Oh from its cosmology breakdown. Because even though many are described or can be interpreted as higher dimensions, you could also argue most are simply 5-D. We know with reasonable certainty how the Duel Links system, Prana Realm, and Afterlife stack on each other. Not so with the other realms.
But if we want to use this same nesting doll set-up for Yu-Gi-Oh, we can easily get results that exceed 9-D. The Doremi Realm is described as one of the Heavenly Realms that purify the human ‘worlds below’. 'Angels that reside in the Doremi Realm, one of the Heavenly Realms. With the help of their angel and fairy friends, they play high level magic called "Chords", and with that power, they purify the worlds below.' - (EX Card Storylines 2)
The Higher Heavenly Realms, where GranSolfachord Musecia resides, is above the Doremi Realm. 'A goddess who resides in the higher Heavenly Realms, above even the Doremi Realm, and manages the angels. Fairies are born from the scores she writes, and then the angels are able to conduct the fairies using those scores.' - (EX Card Storylines 2)
The Lightsworn reside in a ‘Realm of Light’ separate from space and time. 'The "Lightsworn" live in "Realm of Light", a world full of light. The laws of this world are completely separate from the rest of space and time, and there they continue to train, awaiting the day they have to dole out justice.' - (Master Guide 3)
The 'Fabeled' are beings from the 'Fabeled Realm', a separate space that is divided into layers of reality: The Realm of Demons, the Realm of Roars, and the Realm of Gods.
'The eternal seal on the Gate of Chaos was finally broken by the conflicts on the surface, and so the "Fabled" invaded from the Fabled Realm. These beings have separated into a hierarchy of three distinct groups. "The Fabled" beasts exist in their own layer of their Realm, based on their status and role, under the might of their god who possesses absolute power and authority.' - (Duel Terminal Master Guide)
In other words, it’d go…
Heck, you could add 11 extra dimensional layers to this if you take Yubel’s statement at face value. They do use ‘dimensional’ when describing the worlds. Which frankly is more than can be said about Pokémon’s Spatial World, River of Time, or Distortion World. This would make Yu-Gi-Oh’s cosmology 26-D.
To be clear, we said Yu-Gi-Oh’s cosmology isn’t 12-D and we stand by that. The above method would have numerous issues when analyzed with any scrutiny, the same with 9-D Pokémon. The point is most interpretations with equal leeway are going to end with Yu-Gi-Oh’s cosmology being larger.
All sources used to argue Pokémon has a 9-D cosmology are also from the Pokémon games, not the anime. Meaning Ash would require Pokémon Masters EX to scale to any of it.
The anime has timelines for each individual action or possibility, and references the many worlds interpretation. (SM101) So at a baseline, a multiverse. Ultra Space would encompass these timelines, as it exists across these timelines no matter the time period. (SM101) Meaning it would be a bulk space, similar to how many have interpreted Ultra Space in the games.
Either way you look at it, Yu-Gi-Oh’s cosmology would be bigger.
Maybe, but it is blatant in Yu-Gi-Oh. Maybe not Gurren Lagann levels of blatant. The very title to Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s, besides referencing the 5 dragons its protagonists use, is arguably a reference to the 5th dimension and how The World of Speed functions, and it is very explicitly described as containing space and time’s infinite possibilities. The stories of Transcend Game (it’s right there in the name) and Dark Side of Dimensions (also there in the name) would not make any sense unless the Prana Realm and Afterlife functioned in a dimensionally transcendent manner.
It’s unsubstantiated, and only True Arceus would scale. The most generous scaling possible caps Ash at the Creation Trio.
The Arceus movie admittedly does a poor job at displaying Arceus’s might, losing its Plates from meteors, being pushed back by Ash’s Pikachu’s Thunderbolt, and almost dying to Damos’ Pokémon’s Shock Waves. But its other appearances clearly show that it is a Pokémon that does not have an equal, such as it aiding Ash and friends in the Hoopa movie and in two separate mini-arcs in Journeys, the latter of which had Ash plead to Arceus to help with a crisis Ash could not stop.
Suffice to say, Arceus jobbed in its own movie before locking in afterward. One of these instances also involved a rampaging Dialga and Palkia, showing Ash struggling to keep up with them. There have been times where Pokémon like Brock’s Croagunk or Team Rocket’s Wobbuffet cancel out or reflect a Creation Trio member’s attack, but these are inconsistent, and Trainers within these same movies are shown to be completely incapable of stopping them through sheer power.
Not exactly. Cyrus commanded Palkia to use Spacial Rend to wipe out her Garchomp’s Draco Meteor after Draco Meteor was already fired, so it wasn’t as if Cynthia was attempting to clash with it or cancel it out. We also only see a small amount of meteors being destroyed by Palkia’s Spacial Rend, which is less than the amount of meteors Garchomp created a few shots prior, clearly indicating that the Spacial Rend overpowered the meteors and continued traveling off screen to wipe the rest out. The Draco Meteor gets blasted into energy particles while Spacial Rend continues moving.
Spacial Rend is not blasted into energy particles like it would if the two attacks did cancel each other out. This indicates that it stayed intact and continued traveling off screen.
Pikachu, Piplup, and Croagunk halting Dialga’s Roar of Time for a brief moment is a better argument for scaling characters to the Creation Trio compared to Palkia’s side of the scene. Yet this is very inconsistent, especially when you consider that Ash at his best struggles to battle Mewtwo and Lugia during Journeys, the latter of which occurring after he had become the World Coronation Series Monarch.
With that said, even giving the benefit of the doubt for Ash getting Creation Trio scaling, Yugi’s feats and scaling would still be superior.
In the final episodes of Team Galactic’s arc (DP150, DP151, DP152), the Adamant Orb, Lustrous Orb, and Lake Guardians are used to summon Dialga and Palkia at Mount Coronet. This causes energy to surge, meaning there is a degree of power in them. And since the two Orbs are related to Dialga and Palkia, their destruction is seemingly a way of scaling Ash and others to them.
However, the Orbs simply have a special power affiliated with summoning Dialga and Palkia. They don’t literally contain all of Dialga or Palkia’s power within them and aren’t as durable as them. We know this has to be the case, because in DP036 and DP097, Team Rocket threatens to destroy the Adamant and Lustrous Orbs respectively, and this threat is taken seriously by the Team Galactic commanders who have them surrounded. Since Team Galactic’s goal is to use the Orbs to summon Dialga and Palkia, they’ve obviously done their homework. Unless Jessie and James physically scale to Dialga and Palkia now, it’s extremely unlikely that scaling to the Orbs would put characters at the Creation Trio’s level.
The same is true for the Red Chain. The anime version of the Red Chain was created using meteors that fell in Veilstone City. (DP097) These meteors do contain trace amounts of Arceus’s power, as they are shards of stars born by Arceus (DP151), and this is why the Red Chain can’t be resisted by Dialga and Palkia (DP152). However, the amount of Arceus’s power within the Red Chain is unknown. The chains restrain Dialga and Palkia, but this is likely just a form of hax, since it’s Arceus’s power suppressing its own creations’ wills to allow the one wielding the Red Chain to control them.
At the end of the day, the Red Chain is made of meteors, and some craftsmen at Team Galactic would have had to reform them into the Red Chain. Similarly to the Orbs, Team Galactic’s goons or machinery or whatever they used to craft the Red Chain aren’t going to be at Dialga and Palkia’s level, and by that same logic, breaking the Red Chain wouldn’t either.
The best way to describe both the Orbs and the Red Chain is that, while they theoretically have a high level of power within them, whether from creating large amounts of energy or controlling Dialga and Palkia, that doesn’t mean this would translate to the durability of the object. You could destroy the shell of a nuke, but that wouldn’t mean you have the same power output as a nuke.
To compare this with Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Monster cards contain the spirits, essence, and 'power' of a monster, and simply summoning an Egyptian God with them will cause massive surges in energy and large-scale storms (Duel Monsters, Episode 66). But Kaiba ripping a Blue-Eyes White Dragon card in half does not mean he physically scales to Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And Aknadin piercing the tablet holding Slifer with a sword does not mean he physically scales to Slifer.
Ash appears in Pokémon Masters for one story event in which the following happens...
And... that's it. That is literally everything Ash does in Masters. The only game characters that appear in this story event are game protagonists like Nate and Red, who don’t battle Ash. It’s obvious they didn’t want Ash interacting with the game versions of characters he knows in his anime because of the questions it would raise. We prioritized the 1200+ episodes of anime, and 20+ years of manga, movies, audio dramas, and consistent spinoffs he has instead.
We still considered Pokémon Masters and the scaling it entails while researching, and it doesn’t change anything.
Here is the interview for those curious. The quote being referenced is this one from Yu Sasaki.
"To create these interactions, we considered the personalities and backgrounds of these Trainers and made sure that our content did not deviate from that. If a character would never say or do a certain thing, we made sure that they do not in our game."
All this states is that the developers tried to keep Ash's personality in Masters EX consistent with his personality in the anime. It says nothing about Masters EX being canon, or anything regarding Ash scaling to the mainline games through Masters EX.
Needless to say, this interview doesn’t say anything substantive about Pokémon Masters EX being canon.
If Masters EX was used, Ash would conclusively scale to the Creation Trio. Yes, he only fights some random Ace Trainers and the player OC, but the latter scenario would scale him to most of the Pokémon games’ heaviest hitters. Plus, he’s seen about to battle the other OC characters Lear, Sawyer, and Rachel at the end of the story, and Lear was an especially big deal, as he’s one of the main rivals of the main character in Masters EX.
This, to Ash’s credit, would give him stats competitive with Yugi’s (well, as ‘competitive’ as multiversal stats can get). The problem is by the time we start delving into Masters EX, we have opened Pandora’s Box. And the Pandora’s Box in question is going to favor Yugi far more than it will Ash because…
The system that Duel Links revolves around originates in Transcend Game, which is canon to the manga, and Duel Link’s story explicitly takes place after the events of Dark Side of Dimensions (also canon to the manga). The game justifies this by having it be a simulation, including the characters pulled into it. This is how characters who are canonically dead or exist in different timelines have been brought in.
However, the characters in question have their memories, personalities, decks, and everything else pulled from their real-life counterparts across Yu-Gi-Oh’s many eras, down to their very soul. Kaiba made Duel Links to compete with the best Duelists, similar to the simulation of Yugi he made in Dark Side of Dimensions, which Kaiba says was a perfect replica. (DSoD) So tech on this level isn’t new for Kaiba.
For all intents and purposes, the simulated Duelist is that Duelist. If you consider Pokémon Masters EX fair game because Ash’s personality in it is loyal to the anime, Duel Links should count as well. Because not only does this simulation exist in Yu-Gi-Oh’s main canon, the characters are one-to-one recreations of their ‘real’ counterparts.
Meaning the real-life Yugi should scale to and be capable of the same things done in this simulation. Yugi and Atem also do more in Duel Links than Ash does in Masters, and would get more in terms of new abilities. It gives them a slew of new cards that went completely unused in this episode. It’s overall more connected to Yugi’s original manga continuity, and easier to justify using than Masters.
All this said, we only considered Duel Links if Pokémon Masters EX was also included for Ash. Because even if Duel Links is easier to justify, using one crossover mobile game spinoff over another crossover mobile game spinoff would just introduce its own can of worms. Whether you agree with this decision or not, it’s somewhat moot. Neither media’s inclusion would change the outcome of the fight.
There are very clear instances of humans in Yu-Gi-Oh taking real, physical damage from monster attacks and surviving it. Yugi survives a full powered blast from Ra (Duel Monsters, Episode 92). Mahad, prior to becoming Dark Magician, survives Diabound’s strongest attack. (Millennium World, Chapter 15, Pg 11) Marik survives a full powered punch from Obelisk. (Duel Monsters, Episode 140) And Atem, upon learning his name, blocks a full powered blast from Zorc. (Millennium World, Chapter 55, Pg 8)
Besides Marik getting sent flying into next Monday?
You can’t tell me Marik’s fraud ass didn’t feel that one.
Pegasus states that in Shadow Games, people's emotional strength materializes monsters. (Duel Monsters, Episode 38) Yugi says in the same episode that the monsters in the Shadow Game are real and are eroding his emotional strength.
It’s consistently shown and stated that Shadow Games have a physical impact on the user’s body, and can influence the physical world. Marik states as much: "This Shadow Duel is the ultimate death game where the shadows devour the loser's body and soul." - (Duel Monsters, Episode 96)
This is confirmed in the next episode when Yami Bakura gets his body and soul erased from losing the Duel. (Duel Monsters, Episode 97)
A grave robber gets physically picked up and eaten by a Duel Monster during a Shadow Game. (Millennium World, Chapter 1, Pg 25)
The events from Zorc’s Shadow Game in the final arc cause disasters across the globe in the real world. (Duel Monsters, Episode 215) Zorc was also going to manifest into the real world if he won.
None of these things should be possible if the Shadow Games were entirely spiritual/mental and had no way of affecting things physically.
Characters take real physical injuries from Duel Monster attacks. At least when those monsters are materialized into the real world. Amon gets injured by a Harpy in the Duel Monsters world. He specifically comments on getting a wound and needs to recover. (GX, Episode 120)
Aki in 5D's has the power to make cards real. Gill Randsborg takes a direct attack from one of her Trap cards during their Duel and gets a scar across his cheek (5D's, Episode 16). There are many other examples across 5D’s, but this is one of the earliest and clearest.
As for why they don’t bleed or show signs of injury a lot of the time, Duelists are just built different. The more serious answer is this is a kids show that isn’t going to show excessive injuries. 99% of instances where Ash survives Pokémon attacks have no signs of blood or injury for the same reason.
Sure. If someone fired a gun at Yugi in the context of his story, he wouldn’t face tank the bullet Superman style just because he’s survived powerful attacks from Duel Monsters, but the same can be said about humans in the Pokémon world.
If severed from any versus brain drain, both characters should be far less durable than their monsters, and either taking a direct attack from the other’s monster would lead to them getting smited.
We’ll also point out, in terms of ‘believability’, a lot of Duel Monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh’s world are just normal humans, or magically empowered humans, and normal humans are shown to possess magic and physicality at least in the ballpark of various Duel Monsters. Some examples.
The point is, if this comes down purely to ‘vibes’, there’s just as much precedent for humans in Yu-Gi-Oh being able to tussle with monsters as there is for humans in Pokémon. And if Yugi is a glass cannon, so is Ash.
No. Shadow Games aren’t something people can just opt out of. Once one has been invoked they need to play it. (Duel Monsters, Episode 79) This wouldn’t matter though because…
No. Yugi and Atem summon monsters in the final arc without making any kind of Shadow Game. Even outside of that he’s done stuff like summon Slifer on a whim to fry a guy. (Yu-Gi-Oh R, Ch. 32, Pg 2) They also pretty regularly summon them without Shadow Games in the filler.
The original purpose of the Millennium Items was to call upon the power of Duel Monsters to protect Egypt from hostile invaders. (Duel Monsters, Episode 206) Said monsters protected Egypt without any kind of Shadow Game being invoked, as shown in the final arc.
No. Zorc very explicitly says they’re using Ka/Ba and that it’s something people of the modern age can utilize. (Millennium World, Chapter 54, Pg 8) Ka/Ba is not a special thing unique to Atem, Millennium Item users, or a type of Shadow Game. It’s something all humans possess. Yugi has shared some of his Ba with Atem (Duel Monsters, Episode 212) so we know it’s something both of them can utilize, at least to some extent.
Yes but the events portrayed in it, including Slifer and Diabound fighting and Duel Monsters fending off invaders, were a recreation of what happened in Egypt 3000 years ago. Yami Bakura says it clear as day.
"This game is a simulation, but it is based on the truth. With a few minor changes, the events we've been playing really occurred!" - (Millennium World, Chapter 42, Pg 11)
Yugi and other Duelists summon monsters and activate Spell and Trap cards at will all the time outside the card game. It’s much more straightforward and accurate to how he fights in a ‘real-time’ setting to let Yugi just summon his monsters and use spells and traps as needed without having to rely on luck.
Rapid Spin is an attack that removes binding effects and surrounding hazards that negatively affect the Trainer and their Pokémon. Moves it can negate include: Fire Spin, Leech Seed, Stealth Rock, Sticky Web, Thunder Cage, ETC.
Most of these moves are physically binding, while many of Yugi’s cards, such as Spellbinding Circle, are magical and ethereal in nature. However, other moves like Thunder Cage are just elemental entrapments, and may be close enough to Yugi’s Trap cards. So it would be fair to conclude that Regulation of Tribe, Spellbinding Circle, and other trap cards that bind and restrain opponents could be removed by Rapid Spin.
However, there are simply too many Trap and Spell cards, with too many effects that function nothing like what Rapid Spin has stopped to say it would negate ALL of them.
Swords of Revealing Light isn't a biological process like paralysis. It freezes the kinetic motion of anything caught within it, even while in midair. This is why Player Killer's (AKA Panik) Castle of Dark Illusion remained airborne even after the seal keeping it afloat was destroyed, only falling on his monsters once Sword of Revealing Light's effect ended. (Duel Monsters, Episode 15)
So just being able to overcome paralysis wouldn’t be enough, and Ash and most of his monsters would be vulnerable to it.
Yes, but even the least generous interpretation of the spell would allow 15 seconds for Yugi to do just about anything he wants. If we go off its portrayal in the Virtual World arc, it would last for at least 40 seconds. (Duel Monsters, Episode 45)
Against Spell Binding Circle and other binding traps, it’s likely he’d be immune. But the swords aren’t a trap card, and the fact that it freezes the monsters in place makes his escape questionable. Especially when Swords of Revealing Light uses... well, light to dispel darkness. Not an ideal thing for the 'Shadow Pokémon' to be up against. And Gengar’s Ghost-type immunity to binds isn’t a blanket immunity to anything that can possibly immobilize him. He has been affected by moves like Thunder Wave in the past. (JN018)
Giving Gengar the benefit of the doubt and assuming he would be unaffected by it, the spell is still a huge boon for Yugi, as it would stop Ash and all of his other Pokémon, and leave them vulnerable. And Gengar cannot and will not be able to defend all of them from Yugi’s offensive measures.
Ash has 56 main Pokémon. Including the extra Tauros, he has 85.
Using only the manga canon and excluding fusion monsters or arguable inclusions like Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Yugi would have about 76 monsters. Filler-exclusive monsters bump the number up to 99. Monsters from his early-series deck would make this number higher. We didn’t include them, but the spinoff games and Duel Links would also make the number higher.
Some of Ash’s Pokémon can use Double Team to make clones too. Usually these ‘clones’ are portrayed as illusory and are described as illusory in the games. However, the clones are sometimes portrayed as physical in the anime, so they’re worth considering. (XY017/XY035)
But any clones Double Team could make, The Tricky can match with Tricky's Magic No. 4, a Spell card that creates as many clones of The Tricky as there are enemy monsters on the opponent's field. And Kuriboh can multiply indefinitely.
And unlike Double Team, The Tricky and Kuriboh's clones are always real and physical. If it comes down purely to numbers, Yugi has the advantage.
Being fair, part of Yugi’s roster is made up of normal monsters, who have only shown one, maybe two, different attacks and abilities. Charizard for example has a lot more moves than Curse of Dragon, and Ash’s average Pokémon has more demonstrable powers than Yugi’s average monster. But of course, the powers provided by Yugi’s Spell and Trap cards, plus the more varied abilities of standout monsters like Dark Magician, the Gods, and Kuriboh offset this.
The God cards are immune to it. Control of a god card on the field cannot be changed. The projectile that induces attract has been both dodged and casually destroyed in the past. There’s no reason to think Yugi’s monsters couldn’t evade or get rid of it by just blasting the thing with magic.
Owner’s Seal and Monster Recovery would also likely get rid of the effect on normal monsters. GX shows normal Duel Monsters are vulnerable to infatuation, but the same episode shows Spell cards like Burst Return, which returns cards to the player’s hand, undoes that infatuation. (GX, Episode 20) Similar to how returning Pokémon to their Poké Ball undoes Confusion. Monster Recovery could do the same.
And Owner’s Seal stops the gamut of any kind of effect that takes control of one of Yugi’s monsters. Mystic Elf, Queen’s Knight, Silent Magician, Dark Magician Girl, and all Dark Magician Girl variants also exist and can explicitly ignore attempts from other women trying to Attract them. (Duel Monsters, Episode 30)
Lastly, in GX, Burstinatrix was getting through to Elemental HERO Avian and Sparkman even before Burst Return was activated (GX, Episode 20. She tells them to lock in and they promptly comply. (17:22) Dark Magician Girl or any of the aforementioned monsters can do the same to the men in Yugi’s roster.
Z-Moves do not bypass barriers. Protect drastically reduces the damage inflicted by Z-Moves, so it’s clearly absorbing force from the attack. This is consistent with how Z-Moves are shown in the anime, where they have been overpowered and dodged. (SM134) A more reasonable interpretation is that Z-Moves just break through Protect with raw power, rather than fully bypass it a-la Shin Megami Tensei’s Almighty Magic. So Mirror Force and Negate Attack could still work on account of being that much tougher than moves like Protect.
Negate Attack is also sometimes portrayed as more than just a barrier, but a void that absorbs and sucks in the attack to nullify it. (Yu-Gi-Oh R, Ch. 24.5, Pg 18) Meaning something beyond more raw force would be needed to overcome it. The same goes for Magic Cylinder, which just funnels and diverts the attack. The God cards can ignore Trap cards like Mirror Force and hit with the full force of their power, so it’s not impossible to override any of these. But they do this through a specific divine attribute, which isn’t something Z-Moves possess.
Even then, Z-Moves are special once-per-battle super moves. Ash can swap out Z-Crystals to perform different Z-Moves, but he’s never used the same Z-Move more than once in a battle. If it comes down to which side needs to get through the other’s barriers, the Egyptian Gods can do the same thing but better and repeatedly by just… punching the thing.
There are Psychic moves a-plenty in Yu-Gi-Oh. Mirror Force reflects them and Negate Attack negates them. If it’s a matter of just attacking Yugi with telekinesis, barriers be damned, Yugi has multiple monsters like Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl that can do the same thing.
Yes. Dark Magician Girl, Dark Sage, and likely other spellcasters of Yugi's can open gateways and travel to the Duel Monsters spirit world and the human world. Even non-spellcaster monsters like Regulus have done this. (5Ds, Episode 49, 12:00) (5Ds, Episode 50) (GX, Episode 42)
Duel Monster cards act as both a vessel and gateway to summon spirits, and have been used to both free Duel Monsters trapped in devices meant to contain them (GX, Episode 116), and have called upon monsters while the Duelist was in a different dimension. (GX, Episode 27) So separating Yugi from his Duel Monsters wouldn't stop him from calling Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl to get him out of a dimension.
It’s unlikely either character is going to ring-out the other, as both have means of dimensional travel and BFR options.
Command Silencer did not deafen Slifer. All it did was drown out Yugi’s command so Slifer couldn’t hear him for a single turn. (Duel Monster, Episode 131) It did not permanently damage Slifer’s hearing, or make it so he could not follow any of Yugi’s commands after the fact. Even if it did, Yugi’s monsters are not 100% reliant on his commands and can act of their own volition. (Duel Monsters, Episode 61)
In the anime, Boomburst and other sound-based attacks are also typically depicted as huge shock waves that blast foes back, never permanently damaging their hearing. (XY110/XY134) By all accounts, Yugi’s monsters would be fine.
That's it for Part 1 of this mega-sized Q&A! Archivist and Chronolicer Members can see Part 2 right now, which goes into the specifics of the "summoner's war" approach, how Gengar could have changed the entire battle, and so much more.
