Pokémon GO released in Nintendo's home country of Japan late last week, and the reception was predictably huge. It's reported that more than 10 million players have downloaded the game in the country, bringing the game's total downloads to more than 75 million worldwide.
One of those downloads came from Yu-Gi-Oh creator Kazuki Takahashi. Despite Yu-Gi-Oh in many ways being a rival to that of Pokémon (they both have animated shows and popular card games), Takahashi has wasted no time in showing his support for Niantic's mobile game. Over the weekend, he revealed three new pieces of artwork on Instagram showing popular characters from the Yu-Gi-Oh series, all playing Pokémon GO on their phones.
Casual fans of the series will likely recognize characters like Yugi, Kaiba and Joey in one of the images, with the two other pieces of art highlighting characters like Marik Ishtar. In the third piece, characters Mai Valentine and Ishizu appear to have shown up unprepared, expressing confusion over Pokémon GO.
Takahashi says he's already walked 10 kilometers in the game and managed to acquire a Pikachu.
One of the reasons Pokémon GO has found such huge popularity is the game's augmented reality functions. The feature allows players to see and catch Pokémon in the real world using their phone's camera. Interestingly enough, one fan has already been hard at work on an unofficial AR version of the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. It's pretty darn cool.
みなさんフォローありがとうございます！ コメントもありがとう！楽しく読ませてもらってます！ 昨日は10キロ歩いてピカピカネズミを捕まえました！ やったぜ〜！
A photo posted by kazuki takahashi (@kazuki_yugioh) on Jul 23, 2016 at 6:40am PDT
Given the success of Pokémon GO, it seems like a no-brainer for other companies to use AR, and Yu-Gi-Oh is a natural fit. The manga and show revolve around characters battling with cards, which, when used, bring various monsters to life on a holographic battlefield. AR is a perfect match for Yu-Gi-Oh, then, and Pokémon GO shows players are more than ready for an AR-augmented, real-world MMO. Will fans ever see a Yu-Gi-Oh GO or something similar? It's too early to say, but it certainly wouldn't be surprising.
Source: Anime News Network
