robert
05-20-2001, 07:22 PM
By KAREN KAPLAN and MARK MAGNIER - Los Angeles Times
Date: 05/19/01 22:36
TOKYO -- Two years after Pokemon swept across America -- inundating homes with Pikachus and ensnaring children with a seemingly endless supply of trading cards -- the next Japanese craze is coming.
It's Yu-Gi-Oh, and if its rise in Japan is any guide, it could soon be sparking riots, lawsuits and financial crises in America, too.
"Hold on to your wallets," said Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles child psychologist whose 16-year-old son, Anton, has collected more than $650 worth of Pokemon paraphernalia.
In the last three years Yu-Gi-Oh Duelmonsters cards and video games have taken Japan by storm in a mania rivaling some of the weirdest episodes from the Pokemon fad.
A Yu-Gi-Oh tournament two years ago in Tokyo drew 55,000 children and parents -- 15,000 more than expected -- all clamoring to buy packs of limited-edition cards. They mobbed gates, surrounded the stadium and forced Konami Co., the Japanese company behind the game, to call in riot police. At least two persons were injured, and dozens more were treated in stadium clinics.
The parents of an elementary school pupil sued this month in a Tokyo district court, asking for $80,000 from another boy's family after their son was threatened and robbed of more than 400 Yu-Gi-Oh cards last year.
The game is still a few months away from showing up in American stores. The Yu-Gi-Oh video game is expected to be available in time for Christmas shoppers, and the usual tsunami of T-shirts, game cards, lunch boxes and other gear will follow early next year.
The chances of any game matching the phenomenal success of Pokemon, which generated about $4.5 billion in U.S. sales of card and video games, are considered small. But industry watchers say Yu-Gi-Oh, with its multimedia assault of cartoons, video games, cards and kid gear, stands the best chance yet of re-creating Pokemon mania.
Some American parents who helped finance Pokemon's success, such as Mike Montalbano of New Milford, N.J., are bracing for the worst.
Montalbano, a factory equipment salesman and father of two young Pokemon fanatics, said Yu-Gi-Oh would never get into his house.
"We spent all this money on cards for Pokemon, and I don't want to start all over again," he said.
That sentiment, of course, is what generations of parents around the world have sworn -- and recanted -- about everything from BB guns to Barbie dolls.
Yu-Gi-Oh, which roughly translates into "Game King," began five years ago as a humble comic strip in a Japanese magazine called Shonen Jump. It has since grown into an all-encompassing way of life.
More than 3.5 billion Yu-Gi-Oh cards are in circulation in Japan, along with 7 million video games, according to Konami. Yu-Gi-Oh cartoons are broadcast weekly on television, fueling sales of clothing, toys and other themed merchandise -- some of which has already begun appearing on the online auction site eBay.
Konami has introduced 3,000 types of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and Japanese collectors are gobbling them up at $1.25 for a pack of five cards.
Takafumi Tanaka, owner of Hobby Shop Takarabako in Yokohama, says many of his young customers buy entire 30-packet boxes at $37, hoping to acquire rare and highly prized cards. A super-rare "Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon" card presented to the winner of a national championship sold on Yahoo Japan's auction site for $30,900.
Daisuke Inoue, a 9-year-old from Shimane prefecture on the Japan Sea, said he used to play Pokemon, in which players try to capture scores of cutesy "pocket monsters." Now he and his friends have moved on to Yu-Gi-Oh, whose monsters are darker and require more strategy to tame.
"It's just more fun, more cool," he said.
The Yu-Gi-Oh comic strip revolves around a schoolboy named Yugi, who began playing a card game a few months after the strip was launched in 1996. In the story, one of Yugi's classmates becomes so obsessed with the game that he kidnaps Yugi's grandfather to steal a rare card in his collection.
After Yugi faced off against his classmate to save his grandfather, readers of the comic strip begged the magazine for the game. The first game cards hit the market in 1998 -- and the conflicts began soon after.
In Japan, Inoue is one of many children who have been battling their parents over the seemingly endless expenditures on Yu-Gi-Oh.
"My mother won't let me buy any more cards with my own money," he said. "I have $80 I got as a New Year's gift, but she told me, `No Yu-Gi-Oh.' "
Date: 05/19/01 22:36
TOKYO -- Two years after Pokemon swept across America -- inundating homes with Pikachus and ensnaring children with a seemingly endless supply of trading cards -- the next Japanese craze is coming.
It's Yu-Gi-Oh, and if its rise in Japan is any guide, it could soon be sparking riots, lawsuits and financial crises in America, too.
"Hold on to your wallets," said Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles child psychologist whose 16-year-old son, Anton, has collected more than $650 worth of Pokemon paraphernalia.
In the last three years Yu-Gi-Oh Duelmonsters cards and video games have taken Japan by storm in a mania rivaling some of the weirdest episodes from the Pokemon fad.
A Yu-Gi-Oh tournament two years ago in Tokyo drew 55,000 children and parents -- 15,000 more than expected -- all clamoring to buy packs of limited-edition cards. They mobbed gates, surrounded the stadium and forced Konami Co., the Japanese company behind the game, to call in riot police. At least two persons were injured, and dozens more were treated in stadium clinics.
The parents of an elementary school pupil sued this month in a Tokyo district court, asking for $80,000 from another boy's family after their son was threatened and robbed of more than 400 Yu-Gi-Oh cards last year.
The game is still a few months away from showing up in American stores. The Yu-Gi-Oh video game is expected to be available in time for Christmas shoppers, and the usual tsunami of T-shirts, game cards, lunch boxes and other gear will follow early next year.
The chances of any game matching the phenomenal success of Pokemon, which generated about $4.5 billion in U.S. sales of card and video games, are considered small. But industry watchers say Yu-Gi-Oh, with its multimedia assault of cartoons, video games, cards and kid gear, stands the best chance yet of re-creating Pokemon mania.
Some American parents who helped finance Pokemon's success, such as Mike Montalbano of New Milford, N.J., are bracing for the worst.
Montalbano, a factory equipment salesman and father of two young Pokemon fanatics, said Yu-Gi-Oh would never get into his house.
"We spent all this money on cards for Pokemon, and I don't want to start all over again," he said.
That sentiment, of course, is what generations of parents around the world have sworn -- and recanted -- about everything from BB guns to Barbie dolls.
Yu-Gi-Oh, which roughly translates into "Game King," began five years ago as a humble comic strip in a Japanese magazine called Shonen Jump. It has since grown into an all-encompassing way of life.
More than 3.5 billion Yu-Gi-Oh cards are in circulation in Japan, along with 7 million video games, according to Konami. Yu-Gi-Oh cartoons are broadcast weekly on television, fueling sales of clothing, toys and other themed merchandise -- some of which has already begun appearing on the online auction site eBay.
Konami has introduced 3,000 types of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and Japanese collectors are gobbling them up at $1.25 for a pack of five cards.
Takafumi Tanaka, owner of Hobby Shop Takarabako in Yokohama, says many of his young customers buy entire 30-packet boxes at $37, hoping to acquire rare and highly prized cards. A super-rare "Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon" card presented to the winner of a national championship sold on Yahoo Japan's auction site for $30,900.
Daisuke Inoue, a 9-year-old from Shimane prefecture on the Japan Sea, said he used to play Pokemon, in which players try to capture scores of cutesy "pocket monsters." Now he and his friends have moved on to Yu-Gi-Oh, whose monsters are darker and require more strategy to tame.
"It's just more fun, more cool," he said.
The Yu-Gi-Oh comic strip revolves around a schoolboy named Yugi, who began playing a card game a few months after the strip was launched in 1996. In the story, one of Yugi's classmates becomes so obsessed with the game that he kidnaps Yugi's grandfather to steal a rare card in his collection.
After Yugi faced off against his classmate to save his grandfather, readers of the comic strip begged the magazine for the game. The first game cards hit the market in 1998 -- and the conflicts began soon after.
In Japan, Inoue is one of many children who have been battling their parents over the seemingly endless expenditures on Yu-Gi-Oh.
"My mother won't let me buy any more cards with my own money," he said. "I have $80 I got as a New Year's gift, but she told me, `No Yu-Gi-Oh.' "