What up peeps. This post is based on and serves as an add-on to a video made by my man Max Derrat called The Unparalleled Brilliance of Yu-Gi-Oh's Lore. I highly recommend checking it out as it serves as the foundation for this post and the basis on what I'll be expanding on.
The video talks about interesting mythological and religious references found in the game of Yugioh. I believe I can highlight a few more examples in direct relation to the ones he provided. However, I'll be focusing on the anime (which is my true expertise) instead of the card game, whose modern state I have no interest in.
Firstly, the tree of life is an integral part of Z-One's deck in Yugioh 5Ds. Its structure serves as a direct connection to his Timelord monsters, who are referred to as mechanical deities for some more sprinkled symbolism. The depiction of the tree is used in the latter half of the duel and serves as the precursor to the summoning of Sephylon, the Ultimate Timelord, pronounced as Sephiron in Japanese. The other Timelords' names are Gabrion, Hailon, Kamion, Lazion, Metaion, Michion, Raphion, Sadion, Sandaion and Zaphion, all of which are also direct angelic references.
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| © Kazuki Takahashi, TV Tokyo, Studio Gallop |
Another interesting point he mentions is the name of the El Shadoll archetype, which could be either a mistranslation or a stylized decision. I'm willing to give the card designers at Konami the benefit of the doubt and assume it's latter. The reason I'm bringing this up is due to a similar case of varying names in a character called Shadi.
Shadi is one of the most mysterious characters in the series. In the millennium world arc, his ancient self was known as Shada, while in the Dark Side of Dimensions movie, the Plana knew him as master Shin (though it should be noted this may either be his last name or an alternate name). He was also used as the master item in the Dark RPG game that was revealed to be the game behind the millenium world arc, this time as the guardian of pharaohs Hasan. Although it's obvious Shadi possesses numerous mysterious abilities and is revealed to have set many of the story's events in motion despite not being a duelist, we see no evidence of him being a divine figure of any sort. Just thought I'd point out the various similarities between the Shaddoll name and the character of Shadi, Shada and Shin.
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| © Kazuki Takahashi, TV Tokyo, Studio Gallop |
Lastly, I wanna discuss the depiction of Ragnarok, which was
seen way before the Nordic gods made their appearance in 5Ds. It was this anime exclusive card
that was responsible for destroying Ra and ultimately defeating Yami Marik in
the Battle City finals. We can see creatures of Norse mythology in the card's
artwork, though it should be noted that since the Nordic gods weren't in the
Duel Monsters series, the divine destruction context was reappropriated to the
Egyptian gods. Moreover, a large tree also appears in the card's artwork, though whether or not that's the tree of life is up for debate.
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| Source: AlanMac95 Via DeviantArt |
In conclusion, just wanted to point out some more interesting examples of real life lore found within Yugioh. There are tons more, but I wanted to expand specifically on the ones he and his girlfriend discussed. I love seeing content creators I follow put some respect on Yugioh's name, considering it's my favourite franchise of all time. Max is one of my favourite YouTubers who makes phenomenal analysis videos, so I highly recommend his channel to anyone interested in delving deeper into topics covering a plethora of media. I have great respect for his continued focus on providing an original perspective, which is arguably what all analytical added value should be based on. Later ✌
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