You might be surprised to hear this but the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise is alive and well. Not only are we getting a comprehensive expansion of Legacy Of The Duelist next month on the Nintendo Switch, it’s been revealed that a new anime is coming down the pipeline next year. While there’s no name or new character reveals yet, what has been teased is that this new series will change up the series’ history. It could mean a return to basics, finally making a show with Yugi and the gang again, or maybe it’ll have some kind of time traveling gimmick and feature arcs in all the previous series. Only time will tell.
This new Yu-Gi-Oh! anime will be the seventh in the franchise. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. It’ll be the eight if we count the long lost season zero that covered the early arcs of the manga before it was a card game series. For all intents and purposes though, the announcement video for the new series only brings up the main six installments; Yu-Gi-Oh!, GX, 5DS, Zexal, Arc-V, and the weirdly named Vrains. Much of the staff from previous seasons are being brought in to work on this show that’s set to come out next year, with industry veteran Masahiro Hosoda directing.
I personally hopped off the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime bandwagon after 5DS. Card games on motorcycles was enough for me, but I give the franchise credit for somehow keeping on keeping on. If this new series does bring back some fan favorite characters, especially from the original era I might be interested. Arc-V did a little of that with the GX and 5DS cast but I couldn’t muster the interest to watch that whole show. That said, I did really like the movie Yu-Gi-Oh! Darkside Of Dimensions that came out a couple of years ago which featured the triumphant return of Yugi, Kaiba, and the rest of the gang.
The as of now untitled Yu-Gi-Oh! show is set to come out next year.