What's true main story of "Yu-Gi-Oh" series before it was about TCG?

Question

I have read the original of Yu-Gi-Oh series ( The First Generation ). It surprised me that the first chapter ( about 1 to 10 chapters of Yu-Gi-Oh ) it's not about a TCG (Trading Card Game) which people nowadays familiar with. Formerly, the main story is about Yugi and his penalty game, beating some bad guy, compare it with GX, 5D, Zexal, and Arc V which are already about TCG and Duel from the very first chapter.

Does Yu-Gi-Oh actually not a series about TCG from the first ? Why did they change the concept of story all of sudden ? if it's not, Why the first chapter of the story is not about TCG ?

Answer 1

In the initial stages of the manga, Yu-Gi-Oh was more or less supposed to be a horror manga. Although the end result was a manga about games, it was clear that some horror elements influenced certain aspects of the story. It was later decided that "battle" be the primary theme. Since there were a lot of "Fighting/Combat" based manga, it was in a way difficult to come up with something original. Hence it was decided to create a fighting based manga where the main character does not hit anybody.

Hence, the early chapters of Yu-Gi-Oh feature a variety of different games; but from chapter 60 (volume 7) onwards, the most common game that appeared as a plot device was the Duel Monsters card game (formerly known as Magic & Wizards) through the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City tournament arcs; receiving elevated plot relevance in the latter arc.

Other games still appear during the DDD and Memory World portions of the manga and gaming, in general, is often referred to; the modern card game being a recent fad in Japan imported from the United States within the original story.

Reference

Answer 2

It started out as being a manga about a kid who became possessed by an ancient spirit residing in the Millennium Puzzle who fought evil games

It was originally a horror manga. In order to make the fights original, the author made the fights Shadow Games that reveal the dark nature of players.

As for why the story deviated from the original, that's what happens when an episodic type changes to a continuous storyline type. Having a bunch of quality short stories will keep readers interested for a time, but what makes readers really starve for your next chapter is a long story. Resolving a conflict doesn't make readers want to read more. Loose ends do.

In order to make a transition in this manner, you need to focus on a specific aspect. The manga could have gone a number of ways. Role playing games, live action deathtraps, game-Batman, capsule monsters, chinese dragon cards. They settled on the Duel Monsters because apparently the readers really liked the card game. Duel Monsters was originally only supposed to appear twice: both of them duels with Kaiba in the original series. But the author decided to go all in with Duelist Kingdom and the rest is history.

Since the premise became based on a card game, having guns and panty shots in a trading card game based anime would be a recipe for utter disaster since they would clearly detract from the story. And since the friendship theme was already there it made sense to market to kids.

Original source material for the story of Yugioh's growth will be found in the forewords and chapter notes of the manga volumes. I sourced this answer from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!