Regarding Yu-Gi-Oh! as a Martial Arts Anime: Would you say there's particular series of it that lean into that more/less than the rest? You think there's a "Most Martial Arts Anime" series so far and a "Least Martial Arts Anime' series so far, insofar as you can tell?
Honestly a good question!
It's a bit hard to disentangle because some much of what I'm talking about is basically Yu-Gi-Oh! and much of the card game anime genre are members of the shonen genre, which naturally are running on essentially a Martial Arts story engine which just kinda goes back AGES to older and older stuff.
Like I can make good arguments for and against which series are and aren't, because a lot of what I'm talking about isn't so much like, front end stuff, it's more back end firmware and engines, of social stock tropes from Asian culture and society that writers just naturally draw from.
Hrmmmmm...
I feel like Bridge's era might be a bit less leaning into it, but then my brain immediately jumps to a bunch of stock tropes and genre tools and go 'yeah no, it's still pretty cooked in'.
MAYBE ZEXAL as the least, because it's more Shin Megami Tensei meets Saint Seiya, but I'm immediately thinking on three or four examples of "Yeah, this is still pretty martial arts-y/genre convention".
Takahashi-sensei with the original comic was also I'd argue a BIT better about it, but the firmware's still there, and the more ridiculous examples are from the spinoffs I think.
