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TIME
MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22
Crouching Lizard
Step aside, Pikachu. The 'King of Games' has stolen
your crown in Japan and is poised to conquer America
By LISA TAKEUCHI CULLEN Tokyo
The white dolphin heads to battle. She is a
water-borne soldier who can swim to swift escape but has inadequate fighting
skills. Her opponent materializes: the Armored Lizard. Damn! My dolphin
is no match for its steely jaws and impenetrable skin. Next, I set loose
the Blade Fly, whose razor pincers make for nasty weapons. I prepare for
a fight. But this enemy is too clever: he has set a hidden trap that swallows
the fly. "Game over," says Hiroaki Namikata. "You suck." I consider wringing
his neck but decide this would upset his mom. "You'll get better in time,"
Hiroaki says, as he slurps down his lemon soda.
We're playing Yu-Gi-Oh, the game that has replaced Pokémon as Japan's
No. 1 fad and is expected soon to enter the global lexicon. Yu-Gi-Oh,
which means "King of Games," stars a seemingly normal boy named Yugi who
gains extraordinary powers when playing a card game. The boom began when
it was introduced as a plot twist in the Yu-Gi-Oh manga-comic series,
which then spawned an actual card game, as well as Game Boy and PlayStation
software, an animated TV show, action figures, pencil boxes and countless
other money-sucking doodads. Yu-Gi-Oh is already a $2 billion industry;
it caused a riot at a Tokyo games convention and has been banned from
Bangkok schools. Its U.S. kickoff is slated for the fall.
Hiroaki, an outspoken eight-year-old, has gathered two other Yu-Gi-Oh
freaks at his family's condo in Chiba to challenge me in electronic battle.
By wiring our Game Boys together with a cable, we assess one another's
"cards" and send our own characters off to war. Each of the 700-some characters
has unique traits and powers, which are rated by points. Illusionist No-Face,
for instance, is a magician who can instantly shift appearances. His 1,200
points of offensive strength are no match for the 1,400 of the Mecha-Falcon,
but the magic man's 2,200 defensive points far outnumber the jet-powered
bird's 1,200. Got it?
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Yu-Gi-Oh
creator Kazuki Takahasi at work in his Tokyo studio.
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Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of the comic series,
and games producer Konami appear to be following the Pokémon formula to
fuel the Yu-Gi-Oh craze. Like Pokémon, the animated TV show brings the characters
and plot twists to life. Like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh demands careful strategy
to decide which cards to pit against one another. Because you need 40 cards
to play the game (players download characters into a Game Boy by inserting
the codes printed on real cards), it also plays to kids' penchant for collecting.
And though the Game Boy version can be played alone, it's more fun to challenge
someone else. "Japan used to be a place where all the neighborhood kids
played together," says Hideo Takayama, president of the Children's Research
Institute. "But today's kids spend most of their free time studying for
exams, so it's harder for them to make friends. Games based on trading cards,
like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh, force kids to interact; that's why they're such
a hit."
But Yu-Gi-Oh is not such a hit with parents. Nearly everyone likes Pokémon's
cute figures, but Yu-Gi-Oh's dark story lines, leggy girls and terrifying
monsters make Satomi Namikata, Hiroaki's mother, cringe. As her young daughter
hugs a talking Pikachu, the best-recognized Pokémon character, mom frets:
"The rules are so complicated and the drawings so scary that I'm sure Yu-Gi-Oh
is meant for teenagers."
Which is exactly why younger boys love it. The craze isn't limited to fad-mad
Tokyo; in a large toy store on the southern island of Shikoku, every Yu-Gi-Oh
card and Yu-Gi-Oh Game Boy game is sold out. "I get swarms of kids from
the elementary school next door," says Mitsuaki Muraoka, the shop's manager.
"On weekends, parents come in with pieces of paper on which they've written
the word yu-gi-oh." Since Konami introduced them in 1999, the company has
sold 3.5 billion cards; 7 million computer games have been sold since its
release in late 1998. With the U.S. launch due before Christmas, Konami
is predicting a 65% jump in Yu-Gi-Oh-driven profits over the next two years.
It's the cards and not the video game that still drive Japanese kids' interest.
"The funny thing about these games is that they have reminded kids how fun
it is to play with each other, instead of at home alone with a video console,"
says Macoto Nakamura, a Tokyo game designer. Are interactive games promoting
interactivity of the retro, Old Economy kind? Could be: the toy fad currently
sweeping Japan is Bei Blade, an updated version of spinning tops. go
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