‘Yu-Gi-Oh’ Releases New Merch Ahead of Jump Festa

Jump Festa is steadily approaching in Japan, and as preparation, lots of series are starting to roll out new info and merchandise.

That definitely includes Yu-Gi-Oh! which is celebrating the upcoming convention with a ton of cool merchandise.

Shuiesha’s Weekly Shonen Jump is rolling out the “Yu-Gi-Oh King” series, which is a series of merchandise featuring cute chibi versions of the franchise’s many, many characters.

Such merchandise includes Yu-Gi-Oh! keychains, which include shrunken down versions of series main characters like Yugi, Kaiba, and Tea/Anzu from and a rare Atem from Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Judai, Jun, and Asuka and a specialty Supreme King Judai from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, and many more from various seasons of the series.

Other merchandise includes specialty buttons featuring these same designs in each of the character’s iconic poses.

There’s also a “Thousand Year” calender which you apparently can use for 1000 years featuring Yugi and the Dark Magician, Kaiba and the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and the Dark Magician Girl.

Next is a set of memo pads featuring characters from the Duel Monsters and VRAINS series.

Finally, there are three golden pins featuring the designs of Kuriboh, Winged Kuriboh, and one of the Scapegoat goat tokens.

For those unfamiliar with Yu-Gi-Oh!, the series was originally created by Kazuki Takahashi. It ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump 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 series were created for the series, but the one most fans will recognize is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. Yu-Gi-Oh! 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.

The first season of the series, which fans often dub as “Season 0,” was more focuses on deadly games of chance with horrible consequences. It’s a darker season of the series featuring many changes from the series’ identity later on. The currently running series, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, is the fifth version of the series following Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V and started airing in 2017. It takes place ten years into the future, where Duel Monsters is played through virtual reality tech as a young boy named Yusaku who is dueling to defeat a mysterious hacker group.