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Posted: 03 September 2004 at 2:38pm | IP Logged

http://www.focusonyourchild.com/entertain/art1/A0000579.html

The link is an article from Focus on the Family that talks about the cartoon and card games.

I've watched the cartoon several times and I can say that it is  not appropriate for younger kids (9yrs or younger) in my opinion. Truthfully, there is quite a bit about the show that is disturbing. Many of the monsters use "dark magic" and occult type abilities to defeat opponents. It's common to see characters in the show are posessed by other beings (most are evil).

On the good side, the characters friendship is strong. They are loyal and honest.

I'll write more when I have time

Posted: 08 September 2004 at 9:26pm | IP Logged

Ms. Becky,

Join the club!  My wife and I feel very uncomfortable with the Yugi Oh Phenomenon.  I look at this as another attempt to glamorize the occult, with spells, powerup and occultic paraphanelia.  We will not allow our children to be apart of this game or watch the cartoon.  Keep up the good work and discernment.

Mr. B.

Posted: 09 September 2004 at 4:56pm | IP Logged

My own kids don't watch Yu-gi-oh! or Pokemon but plenty of kids at church do. A lot of parents uses the cards as treats or "bribes" for the kids, and quite often, a lot of money is spent in these cards.

When all this first started, I didn't know what was going on with this new card game that seemed to be a cross between Pokemon and Magic The Gathering. In order to understand Yu-gi-oh! and children's fascination with it, I watched a few episodes and sat in on some of the children in the church when they were playing. I asked questions about their duels and the different cards.

I discerned then that our suburban kids have too much time and money (from their parents), and that someone in a Japanese corporation has recognized this and has found an effective marketing tool. It's all business to the promoters of Yu-gi-oh! Paganism, Egyptian Gods and mythology, duels and violence are merely tools to market to kids and their parents. They don't really care that their products have occultic and pagan connotations and can open the door to serious involvement in witchcraft and demon possession.

I had two choices: let the craze pass (until the next one comes along), or try to be proactive. I chose the latter and turned to Kidology for alternative pasttimes for the kids in our church: cup stacking and Great Adventure cards. Hopefully, you can do the same for your kids.

Here are links to some pretty insightful articles that you can use to talk to your kids who are fascinated by Yu-gi-oh!

http://www.almenconi.com/media/dec02/122302.html

http://www.worthyinsights.com/features/yu-gi-oh.html

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/yugioh.html

http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2004/yugiohthemovie2004.html

http://www.probe.org/docs/pokemon.html

Posted: 13 September 2004 at 7:38am | IP Logged

SOAP BOX WARNING

It is easy for us to run and scream Yugi Oh is bad (it is bad).  When I was a child (dates me) the church ran around screaming Rock and Roll is of the devil.  The church in America tends not to address the true problems, which most the time are somewhat hidden from view.   The church often does not want to address to problems because they don't want to hurt people's feelings or they are afraid they don't have the answer (shame, Jesus is the answer to everything).

I truly like "kids have too much time and money".

Knowing that to much time is a bad thing the combination of to much time and to much money is truly a bad thing.

How do we address the underlining problems here, which as I see are as follows:

1.  to much unsupervised time on children's hands

2.  to much money given to children without budgeting skills being taught.  Fine give them money but make them pay tithe, save, and buy some of their own toys and stuff.  The giving bank is awesome for teaching these skills.

3.  Parents that have become to busy in work, etc to provide the monitoring and parenting that children need.

I tell you the truth these concerns have been heavy on my heart for my local church.  How do we get these points to the families?  How do we get people to see the importance of training up a child in the way they should go....?

Sorry about the soap box.

Posted: 13 September 2004 at 2:12pm | IP Logged

Glad to see this thread going on. A few years ago I did research into Pokemon.  In researching, I found that several occult sources were used as a basis for the different powers, etc. that were used in game play.  One such source was the Egyptian book of the dead.   I put the information together in a letter and then mailed them out to the parents of the children from our church.  I also invited the parents to sit in on a special service were I addressed this issue with the kids.  In the past year I've had several parents asking what I thougth about Yu-Gi-Oh.  I told them that I didn't feel right about it from what I had seen and heard, but had not been able to spend the time researching it like before.   THANK YOU FOR THE ABOVE LINKS!!  This has helped me greatly!  There will probably be another letter being sent out soon.

Tony

Posted: 20 September 2004 at 7:21pm | IP Logged

I am concerned that many Christians may be operating their lives in the spirit of fear.  It seems rather absurd to me to give fantasy characters and a game the power of being "real".   Our job as parents is to train up a child in the way he should go, i.e. Jesus is "real", cartoons are not "real".   Good parents should help their children understand the difference rather than give this fad a "power" in our "real" world.  We as Christians are giving ourselves a bad reputation in trying to win others to Christ when our laundry list of "what not to do" or "what to be afraid of" has become so large that no one can see the love and power of Christ coming through.  Forbidding any contact with this game out of a spirit of fear or making it a taboo in your house may only contribute to other fears in your child's mind i.e.-- if they do happen to see the cartoon, which has been forbidden, will they then be afraid that some kind of evil snatched their minds because they happened to have participated in seeing it?   Being so legalistic on this point may also give a child a false sense of righteousness around other children who do participate in playing and watching this cartoon, making their ability to witness ineffective. 

There are many more "valid" reasons for not allowing your child to play this game or watch the cartoon than "it's evil".  Time management is one of them.  And wouldn't it be better to watch this with your child sometime and discuss the different aspects of what they are seeing and use this a  great tool for discernment about the things in this world that are real and should be feared?

We need to be careful not to promote fear.  God does not give us the spirit of fear. 

Posted: 30 October 2004 at 9:15pm | IP Logged

greg,

I've never heard of one. We have a tendency to run away alltogether. I guess we're afraid children will play the games and then move on to the others (similar to the argument against Christian Rock).

Posted: 16 November 2004 at 1:01pm | IP Logged

Here's another article from Focus on the Family's website. It deals not just with Yu-gi-oh or Pokemon but with manga and anime as well. There are some important points mentioned about Yu-gi-oh though.

http://www.pluggedinonline.com/extrafeatures/a0001965.html

Posted: 16 December 2004 at 9:38am | IP Logged

There are some Christian alternatives out there.  The only one I can think of off hand is a card game called Redemption.  It has Biblical characters good and evil, but Truth always wins.    My 6 year-old loves it.  He too has had many of his friends give him Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and he has begun to give then Redemption cards.   We bought our set at Lifeway stores. 

In regards to fear.  I agree, we cannot live by fear.  But, we must be discerning.  I haven't taught my son to fear Yu-Gi-Oh but to be discerning and to Biblically weigh the merits of such a game.  By discernment, not fear, we can fix our thoughts on whatever is TRUE, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whaterver is commendable and whatever is excellent. 

Posted: 19 December 2004 at 7:20am | IP Logged

I modified the game with my son. We throw out all of the "Dark" cards.

The flaw in "YuGiOh's" world-view is that there doesn't seem to be right or wrong -- merely power. As you play, you can have a deck of cards with "Light" and "Dark" cards dueling side by side.

Playing the game with my son, and modifying it as necessary, has been a positive opportunity to generate spiritual conversations about spiritual warfare and morality.

I'm not a big fan of the cartoon however. When I read an article by the creators that it was intentionally scarey and targetted to teens, I chose to keep that out of the house.

In general, I think we'd be better off helping our children, especially the boys, navigate through the artifacts of their culture. Have you noticed that most of the adventure franchises out there with any clout have a strong spiritual framework.

Star Wars is pantheistic.

Harry Potter is based in a classical literatures view of right and wrong.

Pokemon and YuGiOh! have a Machiavellan/Nietchzean "power creates truth" world view .