遊☆戯☆王GX (manga)
(I finished this manga series in 2025)
I loved the Yu-Gi-Oh GX anime as a teenager. That's why I wanted to read the manga version in Japanese. Interestingly, the manga has many similarities but also big differences. To put it simply: they took familiar characters from the anime, added some new ones and told a complete new story. The manga version feels like a parallel universe. I really liked the anime so I was a bit sceptical at first. It's a very different story, yes, but overall a good one in my opinion.
For example: I liked how the manga gave the protagonist (Judai) more depth. Quite early in the story, his backstory explains how he became a duelist and why he uses this particular deck. In the manga, Judai has a strong "why". This is something I missed in the beginning of the anime version.
Difficulty
Most chapters contain two types of scenes: story scenes and duel scenes.
Language wise, the story scenes are much more interesting and beneficial for Japanese learners. If you are already familiar with reading manga in Japanese, they are not too difficult. Plus, the manga has full furigana. According to Learn Natively, the manga has level 24 (Intermediate / around JLPT N3).
During duel scenes, they often use the same phrases and vocabulary over and over. If you are familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh in any way (anime, manga, card game) these scenes are not too hard to understand. Some parts are a bit complex but if you know the basic rules you will be fine. Plus, the pictures make it pretty clear what happens.
Some of these duels are quite interesting for people like me (I love the old Yu-Gi-Oh GX games for Playstation Portable, for example), but for everyone else it is only important who wins, who loses and what the consequences are. In that sense, you don’t really need to read every single line during the duel scenes. If you are not that interested in the duels themselves, it's perfectly fine to skim over them and just focus on the pictures to get the gist (see above).

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