4Kids Entertainment
Yu-Gi-Oh hopes to pick up where Ash Ketcham of
Pokémon left off with kids and collectors.

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Yu-Gi-Oh is known to
local card collectors

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By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

Local cognoscenti of collectible game cards have known about Yu-Gi-Oh for two years. Ted Mays of Gecko Books & Comics said Yu-Gi-Oh Japanese language game cards were imported to pick up the slack when Pokemon game card sales slowed.

But apart from the colorful characters and graphics, the Japanese kanji made the cards of interest only to avid collectors. Mays said that with the American assault of Yu-Gi-Oh next month, "the marketers are obviously trying to follow the formula for success that Pokemon had," the next big thing in Japanese anime.

Of the six Yu-Gi-Oh series released to date, the Kaimuki games and collectibles store Toys n' Joys carries three, as well as a just-released Japanese import game for Game Boy Advance.

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Note to our readers: Starbulletin.com publishes staff and local content from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin online. We do not normally run wire service stories online, as they are available elsewhere on the Web. This was a local sidebar to a Cox News Service story by Shelley Emling titled, "Move over, Pokemon -- A smaller-than-average boy, a target of bullies, is transformed into a hero." Search the Cox News sites for the original story. Blaine Fergerstrom, webmaster@starbulletin.com

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