Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (DVD) Creatures Unleashed Review: Great Fights, Repetitive Drama

Trading card games are nothing new. “Pokemon,” “Yugioh,” “Magic: the Gathering” have all been there for decades and have huge fanbases. What’s also not new is turning these card games into cartoons. “Kaijudo,” a card game created by Wizards of the Coast, gave the license to Hasbro Studios to make “Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters.” The first DVD set in the series, “Creatures Unleashed,” proves you’re better off just keep on playing the game.

Just like “Pokemon,” “Kaijudo” is about three teenagers, Ray, Gabe and Allie, who summon magical monsters to battle in duels and do other adventury things for them. The difference here is that they do not catch them in balls, the whole world does not know about these monsters.

The backstory is that the humans and monsters lived together until some of these monsters thought humans were on a quest to kill everything. Then one day five Kaijudo masters created a realm for the monsters to keep them safe. For centuries the masters have kept guard on the seal and can summon the monsters.

Even with all those small changes it’s still your typical “friendship conquers all” cartoon that takes the “Pokemon” premise and really Americanizes it (the characters use a lot of American slang like “FYI”). Speaking of the characters, Ray, short for Raiden, which the characters mispronounce and use the American pronunciation, is your typical naturally talented “chosen one” character that easily learns his powers. The other characters fit into their archetypes perfectly that it becomes easy to guess what they will say or do next.

One thing that can be said about “Kaijudo” is that the battle scenes are rather impressive. They are fun to watch and seeing each monster’s special abilities never gets old. The monster designs are also pretty impressive and great to look at. Ray’s main monster Tatsurion looks really badass, imposing and his abilities are just stunning to look at.

The animation looks like your typical American anime that’s currently airing on television. It has some nice character designs, but it just looks way too similar to what’s on today that there’s no way to tell the difference between this and any other American anime.

The DVD itself only has two extras. First, there’s “A Look at Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters,” which is a very short making of featurette. It shows the cast and crew talking about the show and we get see some of the behind the show. It’s very basic and not that impressive. Only watch it if you’re interested in seeing who worked on it. One of the more amazing things was finding out that Gabe is voiced by Phil LaMarr. It doesn’t even sound like him. The second is a rare Kenina card to use in your “Kaijudo” deck.The art on the card OK and the ability the card has (choose a creature to gain Powerful Attack +2000 until end of turn) does make this card very useful.

“Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters” doesn’t bring anything new to table in its genre. It does have some very impressive battle scenes and monster designs that should not be missed. But the rare card would be the only real reason any “Kaijudo” player has to purchase this DVD.