On the original Awesome Adventures on the Interweb blog the first post was about some videos made and posted on YouTube by a fella with the screen name ‘LittleKuriboh’ called “Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series”. So it’s going to be the subject of the first post this time too.
“Yu-Gi-Oh” was/is a children’s anime (Japanese animation) series based around some school kids playing a popular card game called Duel Monsters in some over the top situations. Like many children’s anime shows it essentially acted as a colourful commercial to sell merchandise and specifically Yu-Gi-Oh cards (playable as a real world card game) to the children watching it. Also like many similar shows it crossed over to the west and garnered an older audience after youthful fans had grown up a bit. Martin Billany (aka LittleKuriboh) was/is one such fan and decided to pay homage to the show in a spoof.
Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series (YGOTAS for short) is a comedic parody of the original Yu-Gi-Oh television series written, edited and voiced by Billany. It humorously comments on clichés and faults in various entertainment media and uses geeky pop culture references in abundance. Although many of the episodes feature jokes referring to the original television series itself and similar shows, knowing much about either isn’t necessarily a prerequisite to finding humour in YGOTAS (though it helps). In fact it’s a credit to the quality of the writing that many fans of the abridged series don’t have particular interests in other anime and it’s thanks to the shows light-hearted general appeal that it’s seen success.
I first saw an episode of YGOTAS a bit more then 18 months ago on a random trawl of YouTube for comedy videos, at the time there were only a handful of Billany’s videos and perhaps a few hundred subscribers on his channel. As time went on though that handful of videos grew to around 30 (including some other spoof content by Billany) and the hundreds of fans grew to tens of thousands. YGOTAS gained a bit of cult internet fan base and even spawned a multitude of other user made abridged series based on other shows. However it also attracted some negative attention and after a confusing and complicated problematic period YGOTAS was permanently removed from YouTube. Still fans remained eager and after some breaks from making videos LittleKuriboh returned with a YGOTAS website where he continues to post new content.
The YGOTAS website is found at http://www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com/ where the episode link will lead you to a sequenced list of all 27 abridged episodes so far and some of Billany’s other related videos. Here’s a direct link to Episode 9, (the Spanish bits a joke) it’s an episode that I think illustrates the series content well. Also heres a link to a recently posted video, Abridged 101, which isn’t an abridged episode but a tongue in cheek tutorial by Billany voicing his Yugi stuffed toy (Yugi is the main character in Yu-Gi-Oh) about how to make an abridged series. Handily, this video gives “newbs” an idea of the kind of humour to expect from YGOTAS whilst explaining a bit more abridged series and how they’re made.
Overall I’d say it’s best to start at the beginning of the YGOTAS series. Remember that it’s an individual non-professional project and while its quality has improved over time it’s sometimes spotty. The jokes are a little hit and miss too, but their well written and performed as a whole and they’re often hilarious. Some people don’t like lampoons and may find some of the content silly or childish, but if you get the pop culture references and the jokes tickle your funny bone then episodes can become a light hearted blast. If you’ve never seen an episode of YGOTAS, you’re a fan of anime and/or have a silly sense of humour, then I highly recommend watching some and even if it doesn’t sound like your thing I reckon it’s worth checking it out anyway. Give it a chance, you never know, you may find it’s… erm… an awesome adventure on the interweb!