The Iconic Designs of the Egyptian God Cards

Glancing through some of the many random articles in this very blog might lead you to conclude that I, like most kids from my generation, like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and Yu-Gi-Oh! games. I still vaguely but powerfully recall getting my first ever two packs, picked for no reason other than the color of the set, especially since at the time all the cards were in japanese, even if they were being sold in my local portuguese supermarket. I guess that just goes to show how huge Yu-Gi-Oh! became which is a pretty cool thing... Anyway, though I eventually acquired quite a few cards, including some very legitimate ones that might have been worth a decent chunk of money had I kept them in mint condition, most of my rarest cards were sadly fakes. At the time, being a naive kid and all, and the internet being what it was, I had no clue where to even get decent cards, and when I did find a place that sold them I didn't find much variety therein. This made it quite frustrating to watch the anime but being unable to obtain all them cool monsters as a real card, some of the most important of which being, of course, the egyptian gods... Eventually I did get all three, but sadly they were fake, purchased from traveling gypsy salesmen during a summer festival in my little village. Still, they were pretty damn good – decent material, official design minus the official logo, correct card layout and font, and hell, it even had a shiny foil. But having no clue how to use them in a duel, as well as having no clue how to duel to begin with, made these cards rather difficult to use, but hey, at least they were always pretty damn cool to look at.

The anime did a tremendous job at getting young fans obsessed with these cards. There exists only one copy of each, they have such power that they had to be hidden in an ancient tomb, no illegitimate copies could be made, each god had his own variety of powerful effects, as well as an additional assortment of secret effects, and they could only be controlled by duelists with a strong heart or a spiritual connection with Ancient Egypt. So if you're gonna make these monsters a big part of your story arc, you better make them immediately appealing whenever they are on-screen. In an immediate sense they are visually striking due to the color, making them instantly recognizable as the blue one, the red one, and the yellow one, for those of us who couldn't quite remember the odd names accompanied by their regal titles. Then you get their impressive sense of scale and mystery, the latter being lost a bit in the anime but both traits being, in my opinion, accurately portrayed in the card design itself, starting with,

“The descent of this mighty creature shall be heralded by burning winds and twisted land. And with the coming of this horror, those who draw breath shall know the true meaning of eternal slumber.”

Obelisk the Tormentor, the first god card I ever got, as well as the only god card of which I had an action figure, is the only fairly humanoid one but comes across more as an impenetrable wall. It's immediately striking how geometrical his frame is, taking up most of the card space which ends up giving him a very sturdy appearance. In the original japanese he's meant to be called a soldier, as evidenced by the fact that in the anime he could be treated as a warrior-type monster, and thus comes across as an enforcer of the gods, with an impressive and steady 4000 attack and defense. His abilities of sacrificing his owns monsters to gain infinite power and subsequently destroy all of the opponent's monsters really give justice to the tormentor name, characterizing him as a destructive guardian. You summon him, he effortlessly destroys his opponents, and that's it. A very no-nonsense approach from a beast who is essentially the Luca Brasi of the egyptian gods. Then we have the card's description that coupled with the dark abyss-style bottom half of Obelisk's body, which doesn't seem to be accurate to the monster as it is usually drawn but it's quite cool nonetheless, maybe cooler even, makes him quite lovecraftian too. He's just this massive blue wall rising from the depths of the ancient world to protect the dignity of the gods in the capacity of a very violent, and very cruel, enforcer. Everything about Obelisk's design is coherent with his name – a tall, imposing structure, built to intimidate, to inspire awe, and to last for a thousand years.

“The heavens twist and thunder roars, signaling the coming of this ancient creature, and the dawn of true power.”

Slifer the Sky Dragon is almost more regal, I'd say. It has a much more sleek and lean design, unlike the more humanoid Obelisk, and doesn't take up most of the card space, which leaves room for a background of mysterious ancient hieroglyphs and a much more noticeable green glow. Being treated as a dragon-type in-game makes him a true and in many ways more conventional dragon, hailing from a distant sky and bringing thunder along with him. The english name however, though a bit of a joke, sounds rather cool and snaky, or at least it did to us non-english speakers. The original japanese name however would translate to Celestial Dragon of Osiris, which makes it more similar to the third egyptian god, but we'll get to that... The centered and more diminished design also lends itself to the monster's abilities, in that Slifer is a more passive beast that exerts control over the field, gaining and losing power as the summoner hoards and plays his cards. As long as Slifer stands, other monsters have to prove themselves worthy or else they are destroyed, and even the worthy ones have to pay tribute and kneel in humility before the red dragon. Still, in that sense it seems as though he should have been given Obelisk's effect protection, but it is what it is... And being the main character's god card it seems fitting that Slifer would be the more accessible design, just this majestic and colossal beast. If what I like about Obelisk is the sheer force, what I like about Slifer is that he's just damn cool.

“Spirits sing of a powerful creature that rules over all that is mystic.”

And lastly we have the Winged Dragon of Ra, the card that made me want to write something about this subject in the first place. As a kid it was the egyptian god I liked the least, but now it's probably my favorite design of the three. Though referred to simply as Ra for the sake of brevity, the full name actually implies, like Slifer's original name, that this god is perhaps a lesser god doing the bidding of Ra, the mighty sun god of Egypt. Then the fact that this monster can also be treated as a machine-type does suggest that he is something of a mechanical creation of the god Ra, a creature that in a way makes sense to us, what with its inner clockwork mechanisms being somewhat understandable, but then again it's all so bizarre and otherworldly that it does leave us in awe of this divine creation. It kinda reminds me of Songbird from Bioshock Infinite, but more interestingly it also reminds me of the famous watchmaker analogy applied to awesome monsters... But anyway, perhaps in keeping in line with this theme of strange creation, Ra's abilities are all over the place. With some cynicism I could say that this was most likely done to make the villain's battles more interesting, but it does fit well in with the notion of Ra being higher in the god card hierarchy, as well as being the most mysterious of the three. Him gaining attack and defense based on his sacrifices is always a neat idea, especially from god cards who in a sense would always demand tributes even if the game didn't, and then with his other forms, more so the sphere mode than the eternal phoenix, Ra really hammers home the notion of being a mechanical creation from a god, a puzzle at first, then a machine, and then a spirit, a creation that to our lowly human minds really does come across as a mystical creature. It's almost as if everything about Ra is mystical and yet mechanical at the same time. In many ways this yellow winged dragon is a creation meant to display the sheer power of the true, and to us inaccessible, gods.

But anyway, I suppose then whether or not you're a fan of this particular card game it can't at this point be denied that it did something very right, as it became so monumentally popular all across countries and decades. As a kid they were rare the times I could watch some of this Battle City arc before going to school, but I'd manage to watch bits and pieces here and there. And it's even crazier to think that somewhere in the deep east someone made some very crisp imitations of these god cards, only for them to then be shipped somewhere out west, only to then one day end up in the wares of traveling salesmen who then ended up on a small village in my distant lands of Portugal. And as I opened my packs and skimmed through them, sitting next to my old man near the central chapel during a show of fireworks at the end of summer, a moment of nostalgia I included in my second book by the way, I couldn't help but feel, first a great sense of relief at acquiring all three god cards, and then a distinct sense of awe. It sounds silly now but as a kid there were times when I had these weird feelings whenever I wondered if these monsters had actual magical powers, if somewhere in these cards really was sealed the power of the ancients... And now as an old man myself I think, you know what? Them cards really were magic.

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