The internet wants the International Olympic Committee to add the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game to their hallowed event, alongside other officially recognized Olympic sports such as competitive walking, cane fighting and professional tug-of-war.
A Change.org petition started by author and YouTuber Xiran Jay Zhao makes a case for Kaiba's favorite game being given a spot at the international competition. "It is an absolute injustice that the game of Yugioh: The Trading Card Game is not a legitimate sport in the Olympics," Zhao says in the description for the petition, explaining, "The playing of Yugioh requires dexterity (when drawing the cards), athleticism (when playing the cards), and endurance (when you're in round 10 of a YCS)." The petition continues, "I now call on the International Olympic Committee to add Yugioh as an official Olympic sport to both mend this injustice and to apologize to Japan for making them go through with the 2020 Tokyo games," referring to the extremely unpopular decision to continue with the Tokyo Olympics despite Japan experiencing a renewed surge in COVID-19 cases. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics began in July 23rd with an opening ceremony that had to be extensively reworked amidst multiple scandals, and which was notably missing not only any Yu-Gi-Oh! representation, but Nintendo mascot Mario as well.
Kazuki Takahashi's Yu-Gi-Oh! manga first debuted in the pages of Shuiesha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1996. The in-universe card game played by the characters from the story was quickly adapted into a real-world trading card game by video game publisher Konami, who was once known for also publishing video games such as Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania and Silent Hill. While Takahashi's original manga series came to an end in 2004, the franchise has continued through multiple spin-offs, anime continuations, video games, endless memes and new expansions to the card game. Yu-Gi-Oh! is now regarded as one of the most successful multi-media franchises of all time, and has generated an estimated $16.8 billion USD in sales throughout its lifetime, with more than $9 billion of that amount coming from just the card game and the video games based off of it.
The petition to add Yu-Gi-Oh! to the Olympics' lineup has not yet received the amount of signatures required to get the IOC to officially recognize the heart of the cards.
Source: Change.org
Original Image: Doug88888