Yu-Gi-Oh Announces Special L.A. Art Show, Exclusive Poster

It’s time to du-du-du-DUEL! While the adventures of Yugi and his band of merrymen, and women, may have ended with the finale of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters series, the card game of Yu-Gi-Oh! spawned a number of sequel series and still continues to this day. One of the highest grossing franchises of all time, its no wonder that some artists were looking to show off some of their fanart for the Egyptian inspired card game in an upcoming Los Angeles art show as part of Anime Expo!

Reddit User Eightcell shared this exclusive poster designed by Tom Whalen for the upcoming art show, featuring Yugi, Joey, Tea, Kaiba, and Tristan to name a few:

The art show itself will feature a number of different pieces from artists around the world, with Konami Media Cross teaming up with the art gallery, Gallery 1988, to bring these duel monster paintings to the masses. The gallery has commissioned over 50 of their artists to put together some amazing artwork that shows off the intricate, and sometimes strange, designs of the dueling monsters card anime series. The show itself will take place on July 5th and run through July 14th, so fans will have plenty of time to see all the art if they’re in the area.

The president of Konami Cross Media, the current owners of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series, had this to say about the upcoming artshow:

“It is an honor to organize a show celebrating the rich expansive world of Yu-Gi-Oh! created by Kazuki Takahashi. We are very excited to be partnering with Gallery1988 and the participating artists.”

Aside from simply marveling at all the different artists’ work, the gallery will also make available six limited edition screen prints for Yu-Gi-Oh! fans to place in defense mode, should they wish.

Will you be able to attend this duelist’s dream of an art show starting next month? What Yu-Gi-Oh! characters and/or monsters would you like to see featured here? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly to talk comics, anime, or just feel like clashing your duel monsters against mine!

Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally created by Kazuki Takahashi for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and ran from September 1996 to March 2004. The series follows Yugi Mutou, a young boy who solves an ancient puzzle and is possessed by the spirit of the Egyptian pharoah. Being skilled at deadly games, the Pharoah goes on to create and solve problems for Yugi based on deadly games of chance.

Two anime adaptations were created for the series, but the one most fans will recognize is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. Duel Monsters was the first arc in the story to focus on the “Duel Monsters” card game and was the first season licensed for an English language release by 4Kids Entertainment.