Review of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2016) by Lovro H — 17 Apr 2017

Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions is the official continunation of the original Duel Monsters show that finished airing back in 2004. This movie continues the story of Yugi, Jounouchi, Seto, Bakura and many others.

Final season, season 5, ended with Yugi and Atem being separated from each other and Atem going back to his home, and Yugi going back to his ordinary life. Now, all of the characters are graduating from high school and just when they thought everything was settled, a mysterious new student, Aigami, joins their class and has a secret plan to "kill" the characters responsible for the death of someone very close to him.

When Aigami was young, he was under the care of a teacher, Shin, who saved him, and other kids, from poverty and an abusive guardian. Shin taught them all about the seven Millenium items; what they do, who they belong to, which can be used for good, which for bad.

One night, Shin gets killed by the spirit of the Millenium Ring and Aigami swears to find and send the killer(s) to another dimension (AKA kill them). That's the main story, but there's also a side story with Seto Kaiba trying to complete the Millenium Puzzle so that he can battle Atem and defeat him.

Now that the story part is done, let's get to the review! I had a blast watching this movie! It was probably one of the most fun experiences I've had in recent memory. Seeing all the characters back after such a long time (and in glorious HD for the first time, excluding the 2010 crossover special Bonds Beyond Time) made me very happy! Before I give my thoughts on the story and everything that goes on in this movie, I have to compliment the animators because this movie features some of the most well done animation I've ever seen.

I was constantly blown away by the visuals and I think I barely even blinked during the action sequences. It was breathtaking. They outdid themselves with this movie. All of the animation was traditional, no CGI, except some of the duel monsters who were fully CG, but still looked surprisingly fantastic! I love how the 3D monsters were so well incorporated into the traditional 2D animation.

So, from a technical standpoint, this movie is absolutely fantastic! No complaints whatsoever there. But, the story can get quite confusing. The whole Aigami part confused me at moments because we get these long exposition sequences where, mostly, Aigami explains what these other dimensions are, how people feel there, why they feel like that and how he sends them there.

It can be very hard to follow. Besides that, I enjoyed the Aigami flashbacks and his duels. This movie also brings with it a new way of summoning monsters; dimension summoning. It was interesting to see them do something new, but it wasn't really necessary as it doesn't play a big part in the movie.

It's barely noticeable and I think the movie would've been the same, if not better, without it. But, I did really like the new cards they featured. All of the Cubic monsters were very interesting and I can't wait to get my hands on some of those cards.

The whole side plot with Kaiba was also very entertaining. Seto is a very, very self-centered character who can't live with the thought of losing against Yugi/Atem so he goes through a lot just so he could duel Yugi again and prove to him that he's better than him.

I adored their duel at the end and I adored it even more when they teamed up against Aigami. Some of the best Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes were the ones where Seto and Yugi had to team up to defeat a shared enemy, so seeing them do that again was very heartwarming.

Jounouchi, I feel, needed a duel sequence. Of all of the characters, he is the one who is really in a state of euphoria when he's dueling and I really hoped we'd get a duel with him, but he mostly just fangirls about the new duel disk and helps his friends in other ways.

Otogi was also wasted, I feel. He appears in one scene for a minute and that's it. He was also a huge part of the original show, especially in season three, and seeing him thrown away like that wasn't great.

The voice-acting is phenomenal. I adore the voice-acting in this franchise. The original series I've seen both in Japanese and in English, but this movie I've see, so far, only in Japanese so I can't rightly judge the English dub, but all of the original cast is back so I'm sure it's great.

The soundtrack has the same songs that the original show did, except they're now a bit upgraded and some feature a choir. The ending was very satisfying and although I don't understand the concept of Kaiba's new machine, it was very interesting to see him be so dedicated to his mission of defeating Atem in a duel.

All in all, YGO!: The Dark Side of Dimensions is a blast that I highly recommend only to the fans of the franchise who have seen the original Duel Monsters show as a lot of the things that happen in this movie will not be understood if you haven't seen the show.