YMMV / Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light

• Arc Fatigue: The duel between the Pharaoh and Kaiba takes up the majority of the movie, mostly consists of the two standing around and talking like most other duels, and interrupts the more interesting scenes with Yugi and the others inside the Millennium Puzzle.
• Continuity Lockout: To those who never saw the series, this movie is really hard to get into, since it starts in a very late portion of its continuity, apparently right before the final arc would have begun (and even then, there are significant errors).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Peten the Dark Clown. His fun, renaissance design, distinctive personality for what little screen-time he had, brutal (and uncensored) attack animation, and his Leitmotif makes him fairly memorable.
• Fanfic Fuel: Since neither Bakura appears in the movie, theories and fanfics about where they were are popular.
• Genius Bonus: The hieroglyphics that appear before the Title Drop spell out Pyramid of Light accurately.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Anubis shows Yugi and his friends a vision of the future, where he is resurrected and uses the power of Duel Monsters to destroy the world, and we see visions of cities being razed and the military being wiped out by the attacking monsters. In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, this is exactly the future that comes to pass with the development of Ener-D technology at the hands of the Meklords, and in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V the Fusion Dimension weaponizes the Hard Light monsters to invade and destroy other dimensions.
• Moe: This film introduces the Toon version of Dark Magician Girl. And she's adorable.
• The Scrappy: Anubis, the Big Bad, is hated and mocked by many. He only appears in person at the end of the movie and has no personality whatsoever, as well as vaguely defined and generic motives. He doesn't even fit into the continuity. The Japanese version somewhat fixes this by giving him a goal that, while still vague, is not as generic.
• So Bad, It's Good: The general consensus of the fans anyway.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Not only are the scenes in the Puzzle with Yugi and the gang more interesting than the duel itself, there's also the implication that the Pharaoh fought and sealed Anubis in the past. Anubis remembers this, but Atem does not, yet we never get to see any flashbacks or mentions of where the Dagger of Fate came from in relation to the rest of the Items.
  • Part of the plot in the sub version was that Kaiba was 'the King of Light' whereas Yami was the 'King of Darkness' and Anubis planned to possess Kaiba to become the 'King of Destruction'. All three titles are never really discussed beyond being brought up in conversation.
  • As pointed out by Shinta Reviews, the concept of Anubis as a villain is rather inspired. As in Egyptian mythology, the Pharaohs would take on the role of Osiris's will on Earth, though said god was later syncretised to also be the god of the dead, taking away Anubis's domain. This, combined with Atem essentially cheating death with the Millenium Puzzle, and thus slipping out of Anubis's grasp, means that he would have a personal vendetta against Yugi, the Pharaoh and their friends and reclaim what he views as rightfully his. The problem is that all of this only comes from reading between the lines and taking cues from the source material, as the sub barely even pays lip-service to the idea and the dub ignores it entirely.

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