Is it time to duel at the Olympics?
All eyes are on Japan as the world's champions battle it out at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. While everyone is high with adrenaline and excited to see who will bring home the gold, a netizen is on a mission to be heard as she petitions to make the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" card game an official Olympic sport.
Author and YouTuber Xiran Jay Zhao launched a Change.org campaign calling out the "injustice that the game of 'Yu-Gi-Oh!': The Trading Card Game is not a legitimate sport in the Olympics." According to her, the card game requires dexterity (when drawing the cards), athleticism (when playing the cards), and endurance (when you're in round 10 of a YCS ).
Created by Kazuki Takahashi, "Yu-Gi-Oh!" First debuted as a manga in 1996. It follows a boy named Yugi Mutou, whose body became a host for a gambler's spirit after he solved the ancient Millennium puzzle. Since then, he uses various games in facing many of his conflicts. The manga eventually became an anime series in 1998 that gave birth to spinoffs, new reading materials, and collectible trading cards based on its Duel Monster concept. In 2011, the trading card was named by the Guinness World Records as the top selling card game in history.
Apart from recognizing it as an Olympic sport, the inclusion of the card game, for Xiran, will be a way for the International Olympic Committee to "apologize to Japan for making them go through with the 2020 Tokyo Games." The campaign is now on its way to achieving its 7,500 signature goal.
What do you think? Do you want to see "Yu-Gi-Oh!" in the Olympics?