Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series (often abbreviated to Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged or simply YGOTAS) is a humorous and popular fan parody of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime as dubbed by 4Kids Entertainment. It is created by an artist known as LittleKuriboh, who strives to update the series weekly, although this has not always been possible.

Warning: Plot Endings and/or Spoilers Below

Overview
As the name suggests, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series is a dramatically shortened down version of the original series, cutting each episode down from twenty minutes, to around four to six minutes. This includes episodes in two parts, which are taken as one episode, although there are exceptions. The characters are all voiced by LittleKuriboh, even the female ones (with the exception of Rebecca, who is voiced by LittleKuriboh's fiancée), adding to the parody.

The series is focused on making fun of the eccentricities of the series, most prominently the fact that Duel Monsters is a children’s card game, yet is played by teens and adults with unfaltering seriousness. The duels and the game itself are referred to almost exclusively in the series as a "children's card game" or simply "card games". It also pokes much fun at the fact that the duels in the first season have many deviations from the rulings in the real-life version of the card game. It also lampoons the changes made to the series in the English dub, and greatly exaggerates the characters' personalities from that version, to comic effect. When the series began, many lines were paraphrased or quoted wholesale from the 4Kids version, such as "Draw your last pathetic card" and "Exodia, Obliterate!" from the first episode; the later series episodes would focus more on jokes from previous episodes.

Another running gag within the series is the many of the characters frequently break the "fourth wall". They frequently talk about cameos, screen time and the plot; in fact, in it, Bakura is apparently only staying with the group to get more appearances and dialogue.

Still another prevalent theme is that the sexuality of the various male characters is intentionally portrayed as ambiguous. The most obvious example is Joey – while he is perhaps the most adamant in his fixation on Mai's breasts, shortly after his defeat by Seto Kaiba he begins to have “very erotic dreams” in which he is Kaiba's “dog,” complete with dog suit, and, as time goes on, becomes very jealous at the mere thought that Yugi, too, might be having “dream sex” with his “master.” Similarly, Episode 7 features a humorous (non-canon) phone conversation in which Joey tells Tristan that he loves him. Even Bakura, despite his not protests that he is not gay (just British), he openly “gropes” Yugi and later says very decidedly that he has no desire to sleep with a girl (though he says that his mother would mind if he did). These and other jokes may be references to the large amounts of Yaoi and Shonen-Ai fanart and doujinshi made by the series' notorious fangirl following. Beginning with the fifth episode, the series would open with a snippet of "Kawaita Sakebi", the theme song from the first series anime. All episodes would end with a scene from the anime juxtaposed with audio from another source. For example, the end of episode 2 featured Téa and Marik as Lois Lane and   Lex Luthor in a scene from the Superman Returns trailer.

Characters

 * Main article: Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series Characters

As expected in a parody, the characters for the series have similar personalities to their original counterparts; however some aspects are greatly exaggerated.

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series - Movie Trailer
Prior to dubbing the film, LittleKuriboh has produced a trailer for an abridged version of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light, using the same techniques used in the series. The trailer features all the cast, including Bakura as "Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" ( a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail; ironically, Bakura would appear in one brief scene in the movie and listed as a cast member, but Mokuba, who appeared as a primary character, was listed in the credits as "not in the movie") with Requiem for a Tower used as a backing track. It also features Anubis as "The Big Bad", whose two-toned voice might be mimicking the Goa'uld from Stargate. John Denver's song, "Leaving on a Jet Plane", was also heard accompanied by Kaiba’s take off scenes from the film. The trailer made a Starfox reference when Mokuba told Kaiba, "Do a barrel roll, big brother." However, none of the scenes used in this trailer were used in the actual movie with the same dialogue, except the gag about naked man behind Kaiba.

The movie was released on Monday June 18, 2007. There was a slight hold up because he was sick with a recent case of tonsillitis and couldn't do any dubbing for a while.

Imposters
In light of the popularity of "The Abridged Series", several fake accounts have recently cropped up, most actually insulting LittleKuriboh and his work. Some, like "SexyKuriboh", devote their entire accounts to demeaning The Abridged Series, whereas some make bad episodes that LittleKuriboh hasn’t created yet. This was especially true around the creation of Episode 13, where LittleKuriboh was having trouble fitting the series into his life. This led to several fake versions of the episode, many falsely stating that LittleKuriboh himself had asked that they do the episodes for him. This was not true. In order to ensure people do not fall for these bad imitations, LittleKuriboh has asked that people subscribe to his account on YouTube in order to actually know when new episodes air. The rise of fake LittleKuriboh videos is later parodied in episode 18, when Yami summons LittleKuriboh imposters, which prevents Pegasus from finding the real LittleKuriboh, and thusly prevents him from watching the Abridged series (as well as making Yami the winner of the duel).

Many peoples have also started to make their own parodies of same kind as LittleKuriboh as: Yu-Gi-Oh GX the Abridged series and Yu-Gi-Oh the FAKE series. There is also Yu-Gi-Oh the FAKE movie. A Naruto the abridged series was also started which made reference to the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged Series in episode 1 and was mentioned at the end of Yugi's duel with Pegasus. Other series, including Yu-Yu Hakusho the Abridged Series have sprung up, as well as less permanent ones for several other anime (which often have multiple competing artists attempting to stake the series as their own). Out of the additional abridged series, Naruto is seen as the most legitimate, as several episodes have Little Kuriboh doing guest voice work.

Copyright Infringement Charges on YouTube
On the week of March 8, 2007, the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series was removed from YouTube by site administration, citing copyright infringement as the reason for the removal. LittleKuriboh has reportedly heard nothing from the administration regarding this removal or if the the other episodes are in danger of being removed as well. In response to this, LittleKuriboh posted Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series Episode 1 (Live Performance), which was a video of him performing the voiceover part of episode 1 on the street, without using footage from the anime.

Soon after this, episode 2 was also removed for the same reason. Soon after that, a YouTube profile named AgentSniff started a organization called The Brotherhood of LittleKuriboh Fans. Little is known about this organization except their goal: Save LittleKuriboh and anime from being removed from YouTube.

On March 12, 2007, LittleKuriboh posted a live video announcing several new sites that his videos would be available on. In the video, LittleKuriboh is in a Kaiba cosplay outfit and impersonates Kaiba (Which was later removed by Youtube). The three new sites presented were http://www.jentsproductions.com/littlekuriboh/, http://www.dailymotion.com/littlekuriboh/, and http://www.littlekuriboh.head-desk.org/. However, http://www.littlekuriboh.head-desk.org/ is no longer available due to bandwidth issues.

On June 19, just one day after release, all parts of The Abridged Movie were removed from Youtube (Part 1,2,3 were removed by Youtube while part 4 is removed by LK) along with episode 20, 21 and 22.

However, DailyMotion.com has ironically taken to removing videos as well. At the moment, part 2 of the Abridged Movie is currently removed. However, LittleKuriboh has stated in his livejournal account that he will have to re-upload the movie because he must edit a certain portion of the movie that could be 'potentially harmful.' The edit was done to remove a line from the credits which mentions Upper Deck Entertainment.

However, while YouTube has claimed copyright infringement is displayed on the videos, there has never been a claim by 4Kids themselves to have the videos removed. Further proof of this is seen that when the video is taken down, there is no 'this video has been taken down due to a copyright claim from 4Kids Ent.' tag. To the contrary, at least some of the 4Kids staff seems to be amused by the parody, as shown by Dan Green quoting the "Yugi-licious" line from episode 5, as well as large amounts of TAS-like dialogue that has appeared in recent episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh GX. This has further supported the theory adopted by LittleKuriboh's fans that other users themselves are flagging the videos. Due to the enormity of YouTube, administrators appear to not have the time to review the material in question and promptly delete it without a second thought. Several users have left messages on LittleKuriboh's message board saying they were the ones who flagged the videos. LittleKuriboh's fans respond in kind by blocking the users and flagging their videos to have their accounts closed. In response to the flagging, LittleKuriboh had Kaiba, while sitting at the computer, say "I'm busy flagging videos on YouTube to compensate for my small penis."

On June 22, 2007, LittleKuriboh began offering direct downloads of every episode in WMV format, plus Episode 1 of Cr@psule Monsters, the Christmas Special, and the Abridged Movie, through a website with the domain http://www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com/ so as to avoid the risk of removal by YouTube and DailyMotion. The full site formally launched on July 16th, 2007. As of July 20, 2007 the site has added a bittorrent tracker. Season 1, Cr@psule Monsters, the Christmas Special, and the Abridged Movie are currently available in two torrents: One containing the videos in WMV format, and the other in MP4 format. Recently, the official website has began hosting their videos on the site ROWER, which, though including ads at the end of every video, helps Little Kuriboh pay for the sites server load, which is excessive due to the episodes extreme popularity.

On July 10, 2007, LittleKuriboh's account was suspended on Youtube, likely due to repeated flaggings by other users. However, the account was re-opened again three days later on July 13, as well as LittleKuriboh being awarded status in the Most Subscribed and Most Viewed league tables, which some fans believe he should have been in previously. YouTube has not yet made any statement to LittleKuriboh or his viewers regarding the removal or restoration of the account. On August 13, 2007, LittleKuriboh's Youtube account was suspended yet again. The last video he posted was a video of LittleKuriboh himself proposing to his girlfriend. The video was disguised as "Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series Episode 2X". Disguising videos by the thumbnail is indeed a violation of Youtube's terms of service, and may have played a part in the second suspension.

Bonus Videos
Besides the normal videos LittleKuriboh also made bonus videos.These include:
 * Marik's Evil Council of Doom
 * A Visit to Chester Zoo (With LittleKuriboh, Safty and Abridged Yami Yugi)
 * Abridged Audio Commentary
 * Bakura Gets a Job at Youtube.com
 * Rex and Weevil Visit Youtube.com
 * Rex and Weevil Watch Silent Hill
 * Serenity Struggles With YouTube.com
 * Seto Kaiba Addresses Youtube.com
 * Teaser 1
 * Teaser 2
 * Yugi Gives An Apology