Dad, have you seen my Yugioh Cards? By Mike Wilson, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer October 11, 2002

Dad, have you seen my Yu-gi-oh! cards?
By Mike Wilson, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 11, 2002

[Times photos: Patty Yablonski]

Carolyn: I do not blame you.

The box was sent by a PR firm seeking coverage in the newspaper. (Wish granted.) Inside was a smaller box made of tin. The cover bore a picture of a boy and a dragon and these words: Yu-Gi-Oh!

YYu-Gi-Oh?

Yu-Gi-Oh no.

Konami claims to have sold $2-billion worth of Yu-Gi-Oh! merchandise in Japan, and toy experts say (read: hope) that millions of American kids will put the cards on their holiday wish lists. Pony up, Santa: Starter decks cost $10 for 50 cards, plus a rule book and a game mat. Booster packs cost $3 and contain nine cards. Thirty-three cents a card.

Collector tins like the one on my desk come with 47 cards. Suggested retail price: $19.99, or 42 cents a card. But of course you get to keep the tin.

Feel like you've heard this one before? Yu-Gi-Oh! is, essentially, Pokemon, an overpriced, violently themed card game relentlessly marketed to children through a cheaply made cartoon show. (The quality of the animation is sub-Flintstones, and every word! is shouted! no matter what the situation!) Give your kids two sock puppets and two chocolate doughnuts and they'll generate more creative heat than the people at Konami.

Any parent who went broke buying Pokemon junk -- the cards, the posters, the Pokemon-themed hypodermic needles (did I just imagine those?) -- will want to do something to stop Yu-Gi-Oh! before it gets too far.

It would be wrong, just wrong, to give Yu-Gi-Oh! to the children. So we found other uses for the cards.