Pook's Place

POOK’S PLACE EXCLUSIVE

Where Are the Cards We Want?

By Pook

            12.06.04  This weekend, I was invited to GenCon 2004 in southern California, and man oh man, did I get some great info.  Not only did I get to meet with Upper Deck employees, I got to ask them all of the burning questions that we’ve been dying to know. 

            Kevin Tevent is an important person at Upper Deck – he translates the cards.  No, seriously.  And I got to bend his ear.  What came from it had some disappointing news, but also some good news, too.  Given that this was basically a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I couldn’t resist asking him, “Are we ever getting Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.”  His first reply, “Probably.”  Well, I couldn’t rest with just a one word answer for such an important question. 

            He went on to say that, as far as he knows, there are no plans for it to be out within the next 6 months.  However, I did learn how cards like that get brought from Japan to our shores.  He said that Konami has two divisions when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh! – the toy and hobby division, and the video game division.  Shueisha, the manga company that owns Konami, Shonen Jump and Yu-Gi-Oh! (not to mention Shaman King, One-Piece, Naruto, etc. – anything that’s in their magazine), owns the rights to the franchise, and uses the two Konami divisions to separate the distribution.  What Upper Deck does is print the English versions of the cards and distribute them domestically, but only the cards that come from Konami’s Toy and Hobby division – they don’t deal with the video game or Shonen Jump promos.  Kevin told me that the “basic rule” is that if a card is released in Japan with a video game, odds are it will be released in America with a video game.  The same principle goes with cards released in decks or packs, as well as magazines.  Seems simple enough, right?

            Well, it is too bad for us that most of the really great cards that we want were NOT originally part of decks or sets.  Take Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon for example.  That wasn’t in a regular release.  I was told that it was a Jump promo.  So, looks like we’ll have to wait for it to be a Jump promo for us, too.  Such is the case for Magician of Black Chaos as well.  Same thing goes for the God cards.  The three came with Worldwide Edition in Japan, and now, we got one of them in a video game as well.  The next one is in the movie’s ani-manga, a.k.a. Shonen Jump book.  See?

            But there is some hope from all of this.  Konami’s video game/manga division is helping to appease fans, but it is a slow process.  According to Kevin, Upper Deck had nothing to do with the Kids WB contest to give out Card of Sanctity, but since he was the one who translated the card, he was aware that it was in fact coming out.  He also told me that Upper Deck’s name was nowhere on the Yu-Gi-Oh movie posters, even the parts regarding the promo cards.  Again, that was all Konami/WB.  That is why they distributed a card like Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, a card that specifically names Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.  It’s the same thing as to the Cyber-stein release – it was under the Shonen Jump tournament, not Upper Deck’s World Tournament.  So now, all of the pieces of the puzzle have been put together. 

            There you have it.  So from now on, there won’t be theories regarding cards such as these coming out in booster packs.  Now and then, we are lucky that a card wasn’t a promo in Japan, such as Dark Magician Girl.  Booster pack cards are at an advantage because a new set comes out every 2-4 months, whereas we could go months without a new promo card.  I hope this will put some minds at ease.  Until next time, happy dueling!