The First Season, Volume 2

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX a spin-off series from kid-oriented anime show Yu-Gi-Oh!. The "GX" stands for next generation and focuses on a bunch of kids training to become duelists at the Duel Academy. The academy, where all the action takes place, was created by none other than Seto Kaiba, a former nemesis of the hero of the original series. The show is set in the future (compared to the original series' timeline). The "GX" hero is Jaden Yuki. He and his friends are not considered to be good duelists. When entering the academy, all students had to take an entrance exam. The results determine what grouping they are put in, Jaden and his friends are in the lowest tier. They show the elitists there is more to them than meets the eye!

The "Tag Team Trials" collection is seven episodes from the show's first season. The first episode begins with Jaden being punished for going to the abandoned dorm. His punishment is to join his buddy Syrus in a tag team duel. If they win they stay in school, but if they lose they will be expelled! The problem is that Syrus is not much of a duelist. He lacks the self-confidence and skills. He brother Zane, the academy's best duelist, ruined his confidence years ago when he told him that he did not have what it takes to duel. It is up to Jaden and friends to boost Syrus' confidence or they won't stand a chance.

Jaden and Syrus aren't the only ones about to lose their places at the school. Chumley's dad comes to the academy and demands that Chumley drop out and join the family business. Chumley has to duel his dad to stay at the academy, else he has to go home. Unfortunately, Chumley's dad is a real good duelist; he is a former state champion. The next big story deals with Jaden and Syrus competing in the tag team duel. They face the Paradox brothers, who have a set of strong cards and repeatedly team up on the weak link, Syrus. There are also problems with Chazz and a crazy monkey.

Overall, the "Tag Team Trials" collection offers a decent set of episodes. This set was my first experience with the series and while I'm not a real big fan of the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! empire, I enjoy the original series as a guilty pleasure. As for this spin-off series, I did not care for it as much. The characters are even more immature and inexperienced than in the original series, which makes sense because they are younger kids learning to be duelists. But it translates into weaker stories. The "problems" they face (in this set of episodes) are far too dull with too much oriented around life at the academy. In the end, I thought "Tag Team Trials" was a mediocre attempt to capture the success of the original series.

The DVD

Video:
The video is given in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. As for the quality, I do not have a lot of experience with animated features on DVD and I am not sure what the norm is. In respect to this set, the picture looks fairly clean with little trace of compression artifacts or visual distortions.

Audio:
The audio is in English 2.0 Dolby digital stereo sound. The sound quality is acceptable and meets the level of expectation I would have for a film. Spoken dialogue is easy to hear, as well as the sound effects and music.

There is no support for subtitles or closed captioning.

Extras:
There are no extras included with this DVD set.

Final Thoughts:
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Tag Team Trial is the second volume of season one episodes for the Yu-Gi-Oh! spin-off series Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. The series is about the next generation of duelists, who are training at Duel Academy. This set includes seven episodes, which are mostly about the tag team trial, an event that Jaden and friends must get through to avoid being expelled. As for the quality, I was not a huge fan. These episodes were not nearly as fun as the original series, which was partly due to the lackluster storylines.