yugioh preferences

every time people say that the best yugioh anime are arc-v, vrains, or 5ds i’m like oh we must have completely different brains. not that i don’t like them i’m in fact insane about them as much as the others but i consider them the worst in terms of actual narrative and writing.

i mean- people also most commonly say the first/duel monsters is the best but the majority of people 1. haven't watched any of the other series and 2. they only watch it in dub so i don't see a point in arguing on it's "best" status, it's the most popular regardless

(about the dub point: this might just be me but i think yugioh dubs are unbearable if you didn't watch them as a kid? and again, majority of people watched the duel monsters dub as a kid and nothing else so the original seems fine to them yet the rest are difficult to watch. i watched duel monsters in dub as a kid and it's the only yugioh dub i can watch personally)

but back to the others, 5ds and vrains i feel less strongly on, they DEFINITELY have really compelling good coherent story at times but it's just not consistently enough throughout that i could say that i think it beats a lot of the other ones? but arc v needed to be urgently euthanized, it's a thorough complete mess. i can’t help but love it though

personally,  i think the best are zexal and sevens. which is fun because i'm pretty sure they're like... the yugioh fan community punching bags. i don't look at fan things online much, so i wouldn't know, but the times i do usually people are complaining about them, ESPECIALLY sevens.

maybe what i'm remembering on people's attitude towards zexal is based on the past, because i very vividly remember when zexal came out everyone treated it like the devil and that it was "ruining yugioh" now people make the same complaints with sevens.

also from all the times i've seen people complain about sevens, nothing they say sounds like they've actually watched it? or genuinely know anything about it at all, at least past the first episode...? i'll admit, i thought the first few episodes it might be coming towards level of kid's show that's unbearable for me as an adult to watch, but it never did, and it was incredibly enjoyable! and well written! i genuinely think it might be THE best, it cleared literally every criticism i've had on the rest of the series and was consistently just a good story to watch. i'm still so shocked by how much i enjoyed it, i could go on forever.

but yeah, i just don't understand the mindset of just hating new additions to series by default. funnily, i've never seen a word about go rush which is the actual newest, i think people are still stuck on sevens. or it could very well be i don't look at enough yugioh communities, who knows.