After solving the mysterious Millennium Puzzle, high school student Yugi Motou suddenly finds himself aided by a mysterious alter ego of a pharaoh prince named Yami. While trying to unravel the mystery of this Yami Yugi, Yugi and his friends find themselves battling powerful opponents in the competitive card game Duel Monster where the opponents seek to steal the Millennium Puzzle. As the stakes mount, so do the questions about the Millennium Objects and this other Yugi.
Do note that these recommendations are only relevant for the first series, since I’ve not seen the other half dozen newer Yugioh series.
Anime Like Yugioh
For Fans of Games
Kaiji
Kaiji Itou is a thug in the truest sense. With his days spent drinking and stealing hubcaps, his world is turned upside down when a co-worker tricks him into taking on a huge debt. In order to pay it off, Kaiji takes up a shady offer to participate in illegal gambling on a cruise ship that is filled with even worse scumbags than him.
While significantly darker and more mature in tone, Kaiji, like Yugioh, is all about the games. Sometimes they are unfair and just another hurdle to overcome, but other times it is about figuring out the right strategy. While Yugioh adapts more high-risk penalties later, Kaiji is entirely high risk from the get-go.
Cardfight! Vanguard
Cardfight! Vanguard is the latest craze in trading card games. However, for meek Aichi, he doesn’t actually play, but draws courage from the rare card he possesses. However, when one day that card is stolen by a bully, he challenges the thief to a game to win it back.
As you would expect, this series has a lot in common with Yugioh, and it is not just because it is about a card game. It starts off with a meek main character who, after having a particular card stolen, is launched into the world of a particular game. Super over the top character designs. Cool monsters. Relatively interesting card game. These series are like kissing cousins.
Phi Brain
Kaito Daimon is an exceptionally average student, except for his demonic ability to solve puzzles. He is so good that when asked to take a special test of his ability, he suspects that the test is a different sort of test. Suddenly, he finds himself caught up in the lethal Philosopher’s Puzzle, a murderous maze of traps where one failed puzzle means a horrible death.
Phi Brain is similar to Yugioh if Yugioh was just Yami Yuugi all the time. The main character has that same sort of confidence and is also damn good at solving puzzles. However, the puzzles in PPhi Brain come with some pretty high risks.
Selector Infected WIXOSS
Struggling to make friends at her new school, Ruuko’s brother gives her a deck of the popular trading card game WIXOSS to help her forge new friendships. However, she soon discovers she is a Selector, a special girl that has the opportunity to make a wish come true through the game, but if she loses enough, she will become cursed.
As another card game anime, WIXOSS’s similarity to Yugioh is pretty easy to connect. However, it has a similar stakes progression as well. When you win, it is a time to celebrate, but when you lose it is a time to worry and hope for a plot device.
For Fans of Full-On Friendship
Hikaru no Go
One day, Shindou Hikaru is rummaging through his grandfather’s attic and finds and old Go board. This board also happens to be possessed by Fujiwara no Sai, a once great Go player that committed suicide. This spirits begs Hikaru to play Go so he can search for his perfect game.
While about Go rather than a TCG game, Hikaru no Go is also a story about a kid getting better at a game because he is possessed by a spirit that used to play it in the past. Basically Yuugi and Yami Yuugi have the same set up. Along the way, you also follow the players as they face hard opponents and get help from a number of friends.
Magi
Aladdin, a talented young magi, has lived his life in seclusion, but he is eager to go explore the world. After he sets out, he becomes friends with a courageous Alibaba Saluja who, after seeing his powerful Djinn Ugo, suggests they go conquer a dungeon for fame, power, and treasure.
While Yugioh, for the most part, takes place in modern day, it does have some roots in the Middle East similar to Magi. However, what these shows have in common the most is the themes of friendship between the main characters that they use to overcome obstacles. Furthermore, you will note that they get certain powers from artifacts that they gather in both shows as well.
For Fans of Creative Monsters
Digimon
When a group of kids head to summer camp, things don’t turn out exactly as planned. In the middle of July it begins to snow and they receive these strange devices that end up transporting them to the digital world. Inside, the children each receive a digital monster as a companion, but not all monsters in the digital world are as nice as their new friends.
Digimon, as well as Pokemon, are about showing off new and powerful monsters as the show goes on. Yugioh does this often through increasingly more powerful “rare” cards. Because the monsters of those cards come to live via some virtual something or another, you get to see them in stunning detail and it makes you more excited like it does in Digimon when you encounter some new or powerful thing.
Persona 4
Yuu Narukami is the new kid to Inaba. At school he hears a rumor that if you look at a blank TV screen at midnight, you will see the face of your true love. However, when Yuu watches it, he sees a woman getting killed. In an attempt to watch it again, Yuu finds himself able to enter the TV world, a place filled with shadows that can only be fought by personas, awakened manifestations of the user’s true self.
Persona can be aimed towards a bit of an older audience, but it has the same sort of appeal. Young people find themselves with a sort of persona that grants them power. In Yugioh, typically the players have a particular favorite card they like to use like Yuugi’s Dark Magician. Is that so very different from a Persona? I think not.
Sword Art Online
With the aid of NerveGear technology, video game players can now experience their playable worlds like never before – in virtual reality. For Kazuto Kirigaya, his game of choice is Sword Art Online. After beta testing the game, he logs into the launch and finds himself, as well as ten thousand other players, trapped in the game world.
Part of Yugioh is the main characters realizing that they can’t go it alone. It is the same in Sword Art Online. As the monsters get more difficult, a solo player can’t do it alone. In Yugioh, it is their friendship that often gets the crew out of difficult situations.
If you have any more anime recommendations like Yugioh, let the world know in the comments section below.
