How it started vs how its going/how it went
So I made a 13.5 foot (162 inches) long Slifer plush. I really wanted to get some good photos of him outside and naturally the day after I finished him, we're due to get rain for the REST of the week. Uh so hold tight. Here's what I could get of him though!
The dragon of the realm beyond realms has finally descended! This is the otherworldly power backing Dark Yugi for most of the Battle City arc, the first of the "3 Mythical God" cards he gets out of the tournament.
"Saint Dragon- the God of Osiris" is the name written on the card, but in dialogue he's more often referred to as 「オシリスの天空竜」, "Heavenly Dragon Osiris". This is the form of the name that the English version's "Slifer the Sky Dragon" comes from.
So let's get this out of the way- the English/international version of this card is named after Roger Slifer. He's a creator who mostly worked in the American comics industry in the '70s and '80s, best known as one of the co-creators of Superman villain/antihero Lobo. From the late '80s through the '00s he also worked in television animation- which is probably how he became a producer on the 4Kids dub of "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters".
So how did Slifer's name get on Konami's card? According to Slifer himself, 4Kids translator Sam Murakami was made to change the name to get ahead of potential complaints from groups who would consider the name offensive in some way. Murakami simply chose to rename the card after his co-worker, apparently without consulting with Slifer during the process.
Frankly, while I understand what happened here, I think it's a real shame that Osiris got renamed. Its name reflects a major thematic aspect of Dark Yugi's character, as I mentioned in my post on Exodia.
Design notes, original art colors, and key card inspiration all under the cut.
For the god cards in particular, I made a certain choice: I exactly preserved their layout and text from the Japanese version of the manga, only changing the star color to match the other cards in my project.
I simply wanted to keep the three god cards special in some way while also keeping them accurate to the manga. And these cards (with the pseudo-exception of Ra) were already in English to begin with, so it seemed like a no-brainer to me.
This does mean I keep the strange phrasing seen in the Japanese version (it's so funny to me that the Magic: the Gathering term 'creature' shows up in this card's text instead of the equivalent in-universe term 'monster'), but I think that's a worthwhile tradeoff for a little unique flair. Plus, the special font used on this card is unidentified and thus extremely rare, or possibly custom-made. Other card template creators have attempted to find out more about it for years, and so far no one's found anything even close.
This card's ability was made to be a good match for Dark Yugi's playstyle. It's more defensive and technical, compared to Obelisk's beatdown-type ability or the elaborate combo setup interfacing of Ra's.
Excitingly, this is among the 4 Battle City cards for which we know of its original colorscheme from the manga's Weekly Shonen Jump run!
It appears in a color page in the front of chapter 170, "Nearer to God!!":
Panel excerpt from chapter 170, "Nearer to God!!". Originally seen in Weekly Shonen Jump, #19, released 10 April 2000.
This is the first time the Osiris card was ever depicted in color. You'll notice that the shade of red used on Osiris here has a very strong pink tinge to it. Given that Takahashi stated that he used Copic markers for his color pages, I suspect that he simply didn't have sufficient shades of his intended red for what he wanted to do at the time of this page's creation and compromised by giving it this look.
By the time Osiris appeared again in the color title page for chapter 174 (on 22 May 2000, just a month later!), Takahashi depicted Osiris with his now-familiar bright cherry red coloring. Seems he might have picked up those needed markers very quickly!
This illustration's background, while ultimately very similar to what Takahashi decided on for most of its appearances in the 2016 color bunkobon version, is far more orange-tinged here- something also seen in Takahashi's (very tiny) depictions of Obelisk's card illustration backgrounds as well.
In the 2016 color bunkoban release, the chapter 170 color page shows it looking like this. This is a strange case, because every other appearance looks like the card at the top of this post, but this one has a unique purple background coloring that's fairly dissimilar to even the original Weekly Shonen Jump color page printing! Very strange.
(Sharp-eyed viewers will also notice that the typographic element(s) for this card's text got jostled during the course of this page's digitization. What's more, the level star line was completely redone as well!)
So, one last thing. Why did Takahashi choose to theme his protagonist's big card after Osiris, anyway? Why go so far as to theme one of the central characters around this god in particular?
The answer for that roots to Takahashi's inspirations for the series itself.
Takahashi has made no secret of his love for all sorts of media in the series. In interviews and author's notes and the like, he's very open about taking inspiration from the likes of Dragon Ball, Star Wars, Ultraman, Tim Burton films, Gojira (Godzilla), Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Group SNE works like Record of Lodoss War and Monster Collection, Indiana Jones, and frankly so much more.
But perhaps the biggest inspiration for Yu-Gi-Oh! as a whole story is Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Panel excerpt from the title page for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, chapter 211, Stardust Crusaders chapter 98, "D'Arby the Gambler, Part 1", originally called "The Soul-Stealing Gamble". Released 5 March 1991.
The influence is extremely easy to see if you've read that series- particularly the Stardust Crusaders storyline.
Panel excerpt from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, chapter 211, Stardust Crusaders chapter 98, "D'Arby the Gambler, Part 1", originally called "The Soul-Stealing Gamble". Released 5 March 1991.
And of all the stories contained therein, there is no greater influence on Yu-Gi-Oh! than "D'Arby the Gambler".
The gambler Daniel D'Arby. Title page for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, chapter 212, Stardust Crusaders chapter 99, "D'Arby the Gambler, Part 2", originally called "Joseph's Bet". Released 12 March 1991.
This mini-arc has it all! The Egyptian setting, clever stone-faced heroes, a sly, overconfident villain, supernatural powers, ludicrous mindgames aplenty, people putting their souls on the line through what else but a tense and exciting winner-takes-all game of chance!?!
D'Arby and Osiris in action. Panel from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, chapter 212, Stardust Crusaders chapter 99, "D'Arby the Gambler, Part 2", originally called "Joseph's Bet". Released 12 March 1991.
If you haven't already, I suggest you do yourself a favor and read JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Doubtless you've heard of it before, but yes; it really is that good.
It's perhaps little wonder that reading this inspired Kazuki Takahashi to try and create his own weird and wonderful tales. And what better way to pay homage to this series than to theme his main character around one of the most fascinating challenges the Joestar group faced in that entire arc!
That's all I can say today! We descend back into the realm of mortals tomorrow. Or maybe we'll go a little bit lower than that, even. Thank you for reading!
I'm too excited I can't keep this quiet, I'm going to C2E2 this coming Saturday and I know from experience I get really shy and lose what I want to say when I meet voice actors, so I make art to gift to them. It helps get everything I wan to say out. Dan Green will be at one of the booths and I hope to get a change to meet him.
This is the art I just finished inking for him and it's the most ambitious illustration I've done! I'll be printing this out to color with markers and colored pencil, but absolutely will be doing a full digital version as well. I just had to share this work in progress.
first real thing i made on the drawing tablet. I've never drawn with photoshop before it feels like theres a steep learning curve. Like even exporting it a lot of the colors get kinda muddy
