It turns out that 2025 is going to be a really good year for you if you like anime based on a certain trading card game. Yu-Gi-Oh! has been spending the last few years in deep celebration of its 25th anniversary.
With the year ending, it seemed as though the various quarter-century partying was going to finally end, but Konami had one last surprise for us in the form of some new anime announcements. The announcement that drew the most attention, of course, is that they are adapting storylines originally told exclusively through cards into a short anime series.
Back in February, as part of all that anniversary celebrating, Konami Animation released a short video called Yu-Gi-Oh! CARD GAME THE CHRONICLES. The six-minute video was a well-animated little showcase of many, but certainly not all, of the archetypes that have graced the card game over its lifetime, mostly within the last decade or so. It was an incredible way to highlight some of the most beloved cards in the game’s history and show off a few moments from within the storylines depicted on that card art. There was an expectation among fans that this was testing the waters to see if people would desire full anime adaptations of these cardboard stories. There was no sign of anything else to come, until right before Christmas.
On December 20th, Konami finally returned to the table to give the people cartoons. One announcement was that Yu-Gi-Oh! GX would be celebrating its 20th anniversary by airing a new remaster in April 2025. There are not any details about exactly what that will look like, and there’s no word yet of it airing on any networks outside of Japan, though it is supposed to be available on YouTube. The second announcement was a trailer telling us that Yu-Gi-Oh! CARD GAME THE CHRONICLES was, in fact, going to become a short anime series.
The series is currently being presented as an anthology, with two storylines being taken from cardboard and brought to the animation desk. The first archetype being given a storyline is “Sky Strikers.” This was expected by most players as the obvious choice, especially because Sky Strikers already received a full expansion to its storyline in the first few volumes of the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG Stories manga. For those who love sword fighting and mechas, it’s bound to be a good time.
The second storyline being adapted is “Fallen of Albaz.” This was another one people were eyeing up as a possibility, primarily because of how much cardboard has been printed over the last few years to tell its story. This story of a runaway knight and the cursed dragon boy she found was told across eleven archetypes and over a hundred cards. Most of those archetypes were, and some still are, competitively viable, so you couldn’t escape them. If it’s adapted well, the story will be a high fantasy adventure with road trip vibes, an amount of robots to make you question the genre, and some real strong Devil May Cry 4 energy specifically.
Yu-Gi-Oh! CARD GAME THE CHRONICLES is supposed to air in April 2025, with episodes released monthly to Konami’s YouTube channels. It is intended to be a short anime series, likely only a few episodes for each storyline. There is no word of whether or not other archetypes or storylines from the card game are being considered for adaptation as well.
Both new shows are in addition to Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!!, the spin-off to Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens, which is supposed to start airing on Disney XD in January. That show promises to continue showing viewers Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel, an alternate way to play the card game that isn’t even available outside of Japan, except in limited video game capacities. More importantly, for those with a hunger for some card game popcorn anime, 2025 will offer you three different Yu-Gi-Oh! anime airing concurrently that you can enjoy.
Published: Dec 25, 2024 02:36 pm