UDON Previews Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards Book

March 30, 2017 at 6:00 am | Posted in Capsule Monsters, Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! | 10 Comments
Tags: art book, udon

Front cover of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards from UDON Entertainment

Hot off the press, UDON Entertainment has received its first copies of its upcoming Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards art book and is offering fans an early look inside. The publisher shared a few different photos of the cover and gorgeous artwork on Facebook and Twitter.

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards collects over 800 pieces of card artwork that appeared in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters and Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters anime. The cards are organized alphabetically and include their English and Japanese names along with the characters who played each card.

Blue-Eyes White Dragon spread from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards

Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl artwork in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards

Matt Moylan, director of publishing at UDON, tweeted his own photos of the book and also offered a few comments.

The pictures are “as big as much of the art could handle being upsized,” explained Moylan. “[E]ach piece is approximately twice the total area of the artwork on a card.” The book is expected to be in stock at Amazon approximately May 3, “give or take a week.”

Example pages featuring various card artwork in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards

Want to see the artwork from other Yu-Gi-Oh! series collected into their own lovely hardcover books too? Support this release and it could happen!

“All depends on how good this first book of cards does,” said Moylan.

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards is available for pre-order for $39.99 from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers. You can also order it from your local brick and mortar bookstore.

Previously:
– UDON’s Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards Announced

Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, Harpie Lady, Jinzo, and Magician of Black Chaos in the key art bonus gallery in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards

Back cover of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Art of the Cards from UDON Entertainment

10 Comments »

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I’m always a fan of art books, and it’ll be really great to see the detail of all those classic cards! I hope my favorite, Summoned Skull, is in there!

Comment by Writch— March 30, 2017 #
I really wanted to like this book, but if the artworks are in alphabetical order it seems that there will be
-no old championship prize card artworks (which are even included in the Tag Force games)
-some alternate arts not seen in the anime, but not the ones by Kazuki Takahashi
-no uncensored artworks, even though artbooks like this aren’t really geared towards children
-only the TCG artworks – which are often redrawn – instead of the ones that actually appeared in the anime, and if a card hasn’t been released in the TCG/OCG yet, they are not even going to print the anime artwork but simply leave those cards out
-thus no comparison pages (japanese anime artwork, US anime artwork, OCG artwork, TCG artwork, …) either
-no cards from TDSoD, more than one year after the movie pack was released

The upscaled artworks may be nice to look at, but the overall conception seems shoddy to me. Not sure if I’ll buy it…

Comment by dantini— March 30, 2017 #
@Writch Summoned Skull will be in there for sure!

@dantini
– If the card appeared in the anime, I’d expect it to be included. Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, for example, was a prize card and it’ll definitely be included. Which cards in particular are you thinking of?
– We can see from the Dark Magician Girl page that there will be some alternate art included. Takahashi’s artwork isn’t there but it is included in UDON’s Duel Art book.
– I don’t know if anime-only cards will be included. Hopefully!
– I don’t foresee Konami ever allowing uncensored OCG artwork in TCG territories.
– Indeed, there are no cards from the new movie. Maybe the movie and the other series will eventually get their own books if this one is successful.

Comment by ravegrl— March 30, 2017 #
Preordered my copy about a month ago. Except I paid around $20 on Amazon before the price went up. Before, I remember seeing the price being only $19.99. I do hope the art book sells well and doesn’t go out of print within a year. I felt like that’s what happened with Duel Art. Cause for some reason, prices on that book were being listed at $90-100 dollars.

Comment by DISNEYGIRL— March 30, 2017 #
Ooh, $20 is a super deal for a hardcover book of this size and quality. I’m glad you got it at that price! Duel Art might have gotten another printing because Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Walmart all have it in stock for less than the MSRP of $39.99.

Comment by ravegrl— March 31, 2017 #
Since it says “every real-life playable card” on the back, I’d say it’s most likely a mere collection of TCG artworks. And this page

is missing Yugi’s anime-only ‘Blocken’.

These are the prize card artworks I was talking about
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Set_Card_Galleries:Asia_Championship_2001_prize_cards_(OCG-JP)
Seems that I was wrong though – I misremembered the layout of this page:

BEUD’s alt. art might simply be on the next page.

And Duel Art is indeed one of my favorite artbooks, especially due to the prints of Takahashi’s anniversary artworks!

Comment by dantini— March 31, 2017 #
Good eye noticing that Blocken is missing. I didn’t catch that before. That confirms there are no anime-only cards included. I didn’t know there was unique artwork created for the 2001 Asia Championship. Very cool. UDON previewed a page that has Kuriboh on it and only its two TCG artworks are included, not the one from the Championship. Even yugioh.com only has its TCG artworks. This means the BEUD Championship artwork likely won’t be included on the next page like you guessed.

It’s worth mentioning that Moylan has answered someone’s question about the possibility of including anime-only cards: “We discussed this but it was a a bit complicated and the book was already packed full. So a possible idea for a future project.”

Comment by ravegrl— April 1, 2017 #
Sounds cool. lol I wonder if Insect Queen would appear in the deck as well?

Would it be fun seeing if GX gets one as well. XD

Comment by King Trump— April 11, 2017 #
Insect Queen was played by Weevil during Battle City and is a card in the real-life game, so she’ll be in the book for sure. I want to see GX get its own book too. And all the other series as well! Let’s all support this book and make it a big success. That’ll show UDON that it’s worth the effort to publish more.

Comment by ravegrl— April 11, 2017 #
I always believe that Insect Queen & Insect Princess were related in somewhere. Mostly due to them being royal and she may be related to the Queen.

Plus, there isn’t any fanart of those two monsters online sadly. :(

Comment by King Trump— April 15, 2017 #