Awesome / Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series)

• In the very first episode, Yami Yugi challenges Ushio to a Shadow Game. They're on a domed roof, and they have to climb up and down using a rope around their waists and looped around a roof feature as a makeshift pully. Ushio ends up getting mad when Yami wins, and climbs to the top where he then snaps the rope, sending Yami plummeting towards the ground 30-40 feet below. Yami stays calm while all this is happening. Ushio ends up getting a penalty game and also starts falling, and as the camera pans past the building to follow Ushio, we see Yami has stopped his fall by shoving the pointed tip of the Millennium Puzzle into the wall of a stone building and hanging from the puzzle with one hand in what has got to be a display of superhuman strength.
• Episode 2 follows up on that with Yami's Shadow Game against Jiro the Jorogumo, who currently has Anzu as a hostage. After seeing Jiro bitchslap Anzu, Yugi loses it and allows Yami to take over, who casually challenges the convict with the following rules: using only one finger, they have to kill one another. Jiro chooses the finger currently on his gun's trigger, while Yami chooses his thumb. As soon as the game starts, Jiro is about to pull the trigger when Yami offers to light up his cigarette. He accepts, giving Yami the opportunity to drop the lighter on Jiro's hand, explaining that the Russian vodka Jiro's been pouring is mostly alcohol, and therefore flammable. Jiro finds himself unable to pull the trigger, for fear that the lighter will fall and encase him in flame, as Yami escorts Anzu away from the scene. Jiro then removes the lighter with his other hand, thus breaking the rules of the game. Jiro then attempts to aim his gun at Yami, who then proceeds to set his gun on fire, encasing Jiro in an illusion similar to Ushio's fate above. Talk about a classy way to Mind Rape an Asshole Victim.
• During Kaiba’s first duel with Yugi, he attempts to use the stolen Blue-Eyes White Dragon to attack Yugi. However, it refused to do so because its loyalty rested with Yugi’s grandfather. This makes this the only time Kaiba ever had the monster defy him.
• Jounouchi gets one in episode 6 as he pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment in supporting the plank that's preventing a hypnotized Anzu from falling to her death, while carefully balancing on a window ledge at least 3 stories from the ground. Not to mention that he had to inch along the outside of the school's walls to get there.
  • From the same episode, you gotta give credit for Miho for spraying a fire extinguisher at a brainwashed Honda's face to stop him.
• In episode 11, Miho gets absolutely enraged when she learns Warashibe poisoned her friends with tainted water and brings Yugi along with her to challenge Warashibe to a Capsule Monsters game. The animation bump sells the moment really well, even though Miho has no idea how to play and Yugi has to step in when she tries to leave after discovering Warashibe rigged the machine to give her weak monsters.
• When Yami is dealing with the fake prophet Kokurano in episode 13, they have to catch chloroform bottles that drop from the ceiling at random, and Kokurano tries tripping Yami so he will miss. Yami does trip, but he makes a long, low horizontal leap to try and catch the bottle, but he's just a little too short with his reach. So what does he do? He takes the Millennium Puzzle from his neck and throws it at the bottle, catching the bottle with the strap and embedding the puzzle tip into the wall. Maybe it's a good thing he prefers games over fighting.
  • His comeback to Kokurano is just as awesome.
  Yami Yugi: Kokurano. Is tripping people your super power?
• In episode 15, Risa Kageyama and her sisters get villainous awesome moments when they steal the Millennium Puzzle, thus preventing Yami Yugi from aiding Yugi, and are on the cusp of defeating him in a duel when Kaiba intervenes. Despite the threat of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the Kageyama Sisters counter with Gorgon, who's naturally as strong as the dragon and boosted by the terrain to be even stronger. Kaiba then gets one of his own by drawing a second Blue-Eyes, and both of them overpower Gorgon to win the duel.
• In a sharp contrast to the manga, the digital pets episode has Honda of all people beat Kujirada's high-level pet by spending 72 straight hours raising a digital pet for Miho.
• In episode 17, Aileen Rao comes very close to defeating Yugi by using word games and putting Anzu in danger to psych him out and read his moves. He turns the tables by using her strategy against her, commenting that while Raijinhai has 2000 years' worth of tactics behind it, his gaming knowledge goes back 5000 years to Ancient Egypt.
• The Game of Nim Dark Yugi plays with Alpha Bitch Kaoruko Himekoji, where they pick from the flowers she has until there's only one. She seems in a position to win no matter what he does, but Yugi wins by picking the second-last flower from her hair, not the bouquet she held, using Exact Words ("I said from the flowers you have, not just the bouquet.")
• Jonouchi beating up Dragon 1, a kung-fu champion who has nunchucks, with his fists and a can of soda.
• The climax of the Monster World arc is even cooler than the manga's version. In the manga, Yami Bakura doesn't really do anything to stop Ryou from destroying his dice and costing him the game. In the anime, he won’t let that happen and tries to stop him himself, zapping Ryou with a laser beam with intent to kill. However, Yugi and his friends shield Ryou with the power of their friendship, having put their souls into the dice as well. Ryou also wakes up on his own after the game, rather than being brain-dead and revived from his White Wizard avatar's magic as in the manga.
• In the movie, Yami Yugi summoning Shougo's Red-Eyes Black Dragon and fusing it with his own Meteor Dragon. The resulting monster, Meteor Black Dragon, demolishes all three of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes.

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