The Edgy Four: Why All Four of My Favorite TCGs are Dark Elements

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Otaku_Kurai

Everyone wants the following in their fantasy life.

A Cool Warrior
A Cool Dragon
A Cute Dog/Cat Companion

These were the words said by my older brother when I showed him my four favorite TCG cards of my collection. Indeed, he is 100% right. When I look at my favorites, it exactly matches what he said. My cool dragons are the Red-Eyes Black Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh! And the Nillious Ultra from Bakuman, my adorable black cat like companion who is Umbreon from the Pokémon franchise, and my cool Knight, the Knight of Infamy from Magic: The Gathering. These cards are my favorites, and looking back, It’s something that I have always stuck around with. For some reason, I have always loved the dark and edgy looking TCG cards from nearly every franchise.

The Red-Eyes Black Dragon has always been a fan favorite of mines. Ever since its debut in the original Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, when I saw its first summon by Joey, I instantly fell in love with it. Its slick design, unlimited potential with future cards making it more powerful, and its lore as a potential power for the duelist automatically made it a fan favorite of mines. I would use Red-Eyes Black Dragon on every Yu-Gi-Oh video game, such as The Falsebound Kingdom, World Championship, and Tag Force. When I finally owned my first Red-Eyes Black Dragon card, (a rare limited edition by the way), it felt like a feeling of joy. Years later, I still love it, and even though I love other monsters like Black Wings, Dark Rainbow Dragon, etc., Red-Eyes will always be a favorite of mines.

Then There’s Umbreon, a long favorite of mines and my favorite Pokémon of all time. Since Umbreon is from a video game franchise, which is the Pokémon franchise, anything related to Umbreon will always be an automatic number 1 favorite since it is my favorite Pokémon of all time. So there is no need for a long description of why Umbreon is my favorite of all time. That will be reserved for another time. Despite this awesome looking Umbreon card, I am unsure if it will remain my favorite Umbreon card of all time. As I am aware that there are plenty of more cool looking Umbreon cards, and perhaps more useful in the TCG metagame than this one. Nevertheless, its holographic slick design, beautiful TCG artwork, and nice layout definitely wins an automatic favorite for me.

Nillious Ultra from Bakugan has always been a fan favorite of mines. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of Bakugan models. However, I can’t lie to you that Darkus and Aquous are my favorite elemental types of Bakugan, and in fact, they are my majority collection as I have showed it in the previous article and photo of mines. Of course, I plan to collect more of the others in the future. Nillious Ultra is another favorite of mines simply because he has a dark cool edgy design, an impressive looking Bakugan figure, used by an interesting character who is named Magnus Black, and overall, I just love it. Now, there are more upcoming Bakugan in the future, so, let’s see if it can hold its crown as my number 1 Bakugan favorite.

Then we have The Knight of Infamy. Now, please excuse me for this. I have only recently got into Magic: The Gathering last year. I am a complete noob to Magic and I sincerely hope that I hone my skills with the game more and more as I discover new cards and new things about Magic. Aside from that, Knight of Infamy was a random card that I randomly saw when searching for my first ever MTG purchase. When I saw its design, description, and its element, I couldn’t help but decided that this card will become my favorite. Now, as time goes on, I know Knight of Infamy will be challenged by other MTG cards, and it’s unknown if it will be able to keep his title defended. Aside from that, he’s awesome!

All of these cards are awesome, and I hope to collect some more in the future. Slap in other franchises like Beyblade, Digimon, others, and the edginess is complete!

Thanks for reading!

Pokémon Is Coming Back to The Kalos Region, and Why It’s Especially Needed

Posted on February 29, 2024 by Otaku_Kurai

Well well well, would you look at that? After nearly 12 years since Pokémon X and Y’s release which was on October 13, 2013, we are finally going back to the Kalos region, with the announcement of Pokémon Legends: Z-A which is scheduled for a 2025 release, I can’t help but feel extremely satisfied. Nearly all Pokémon regions have enjoyed their fair share of in depth lore, filled with a wide variety of Pokémon, constantly being mentioned as nostalgia bait, and getting new additions to the region, and it’s Pokémon over and over again. New characters from the region, check! New Pokémon forms from the region, check! Old characters and old mechanics from the region, check!

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Recent Revival of My TCG Collection Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Bakugan, Magic: The Gathering, + Todoki Cards 1/15/2024

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Otaku_Kurai

A few months ago, I made an article about all of my toys & games collection that I owned and displayed with the photos I took. Now, I want to give an update on how they look like, but with better quality and camera position. However, unlike my previous article which was all about toys & games, this time, I want to show you the collection I have with my TCGs, such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Bakugan, and Magic: The Gathering. My card collecting went into a pretty long drought, and between 2014-2023 (excluding Bakugan in 2019), I went 9 years without collecting any dedicated TCG cards. Finally, in 2023, that forever changed with the purchase of a Pokémon card, and an MTG card, which would be followed by new sets that came along the way. In fact, the last time I ever owned Pokémon cards, was in the year 2006. Ouch… That was a LONG time. As for MTG, this was my first time ever purchasing an MTG card, and now, I am only getting into magic, and I can’t wait to fully try it out this year. Accompanied by Yu-Gi-Oh!, and more along the way, let’s just say that I hope 2024 will turn out to be a magical year for TCG, and toys & games in general. Also, there is a Tokidoki card set that I got as a gift from Barnes and Noble back in 2016. It’s super cute. Also, don’t mind the little hair stuff that you see, it’s probably from my little adorable furballs LOL!

Eevee and Kitsune – A Precious Memory

Posted on November 3, 2023 by Otaku_Kurai

You know, it’s hilarious. Sometimes when I look at my collection, I’m always saying to myself, “you don’t own a lot” you have to collect some more”, then here I completely forget underneath in my otaku shelf that I have two other adorable otaku merch that I haven’t shown off yet. It just shows how much otaku goodies I own. Now, back to the topic, here are these two adorable foxes that act as piggy banks (if eevee is a fox, lol). It was nearly seven years ago in 2016, when a precious one of mine gifted with these two adorable ones to my life, the eevee, and the kitsune. To this day, I still hold them dearly and whenever I look at them, I always smile with an emotional look because that precious and beautiful memory always pops into my mind. The photo looks great, and it pleases me that these two got a nice shot. Also, I added Emboar and Tails as extras because of, well… You know, for kicks!

Collection of Books That I Own 11/3/2023

Posted on November 3, 2023 by Otaku_Kurai

I have been with anime, manga, video games, toys & games, a few times with live action, probably the most with the otaku culture. But poor books have LITERALLY been waiting like forever to finally be given the spotlight it deserves. Well, finally, here my books, aka books based on the stuff that involves my passion. Truth be told, my books are minimal in collection, and sad to say that I haven’t had the time to collect new ones. Nether the less, here they are and despite the collection being small, I am proud to own them, and hopefully I can continue collecting some more in the future. Some of these have been recent, others have been for a VERY long time, and others are at the middle. Take note, the game informer you see right there is actually more than just one, It’s stacked together in BIG numbers. Weekly Shounen Jump, Newtype Magazine, and Corocoro Magazines are future targets for me to own soon. Hopefully, I can show them off some other time. As for the photo, I decided to use a different approach and a different look instead of the same one to make them look more visible.