clever title comes later

There’s a common misconception that loving something and criticizing it are mutually exclusive categories, that if you hate on something, you’re not a true fan. In fact, when it comes to media, these categories often overlap. It’s because we love a fandom that we wish it were better, that it could live up to its highest potential. We pick apart and examine what we’re most invested in.

The Yugioh franchise is filled with lovable characters who undergo difficult trials but, in most cases, emerge for the better. It promotes love and acceptance; if I had to summarize YGO in one word, it wouldn’t be cards, but rather, friendship. That’s what it’s ultimately all about. It goes beyond the card games to being something touching and inspiring. I love it, and it’s meant a lot to me in the years I’ve spent with it. I would absolutely describe myself as a fan, despite the issues I sometimes have with the writing—and really, who better to have a bone to pick with a series than its own fans? We know it best, after all.

Yugioh has fantastic female characters whom I love, women who are strong and smart and brave and admirable, women who are flawed but human in these flaws, women who are well developed as characters. Unfortunately, it also has women who aren’t developed much beyond their feelings for a man, women who are thrust into cliched danger so the boys can save them, women who are overlooked by the plot in favor of the leading lads. 

This is a blog for examining problematic treatment of gender within the Yugioh franchise. Maybe you’re thinking “great, a place for me to vent about all the issues I’ve noticed!” Maybe you haven’t noticed much a problem, but you’re curious what all the fuss is about. Whatever the case, I hope to make this blog a collaborative venture, and ultimately we’ll all emerge more aware of feminist issues that can be applied not just to YGO, but to media at large. Or hey, just to life!