One day, in the 🌈bizarre summer 💫 of like 2011, my brother came home wif a pack of bootleg Yu-Gi-Oh cards.
Dat marked the beginning of our short-lived obsession wif the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game. We played it, watched the anime, got excited abt the monsters, then buy more cards. The bootleg cards were dirt cheap, so it wasn’t inaccessible to us.
Eventually, we got ourselves the real deal. I rmb even those not being too expensive back then (abt $5 for a pack of 9 cards, $15 for a starter pack of 40 cards). Still, we were conservative in buying more packs. It was our dad paying for them after all. Didn’t want him to get pissed off abt us spending too much money on our silly card game 😬
One core memory I had was my brother randomly bringing me to Junction 8 after Friday prayers one afternoon to buy some cards. He doesn’t rmb it, but I do 🙂
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Anyways, It was always a nice feeling opening a pack of cards, not knowing wat ur gonna get. Slowly looking thru each card one by one, as if the speed of doing so wld change the outcome of wat cards were at the back…
But anything was possible. Cld be getting dat card u always wanted dats gonna make ur deck rlly strong. Or possibly acquire dat cool looking monster u saw in dat one episode of the anime.
Honestly most of them didn’t yield great results. Getting repeat spell / trap / weak monster cards was common. But dat didn’t matter, the feeling of just unboxing a fresh pack was enough to satisfy our 8 / 12 year old selves 😁
Then scalpers came and ruined the fun of buying trading cards 🤮
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U noe wat else was a nice feeling? Watching the anime. Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, to be precise.
Dis show was cool AF. But oso weird AF. There was a whole plot of saving the world (or their city) from some big bad “Dark Signers”, and oso some plot abt 5 dragons (hence the name 5Ds), which were pretty great.
At the same time they were doing all dis while playing the card game on motorcycles. A recurring thing they did almost every episode. Dat was always abit silly, even wif all the other weird shit going on…
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It was oso emotional at times, and sometimes rlly cute too. I rmb one episode in particular where the main character was teaching the girl (who he had an unspoken 💕 sorta chemistry wif) how to ice skate. I rmb watching dat scene many times.
Dat was an early experience of feeling the thrill of “shipping” characters for me. The writers definitely knew wat they were doing….
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There’s dis one song dat I’ve always associated wif dat show, which is its 4th ending song: “Close to You” by ALvino.
It’s not just the song, but oso the end credits dat goes wif it. Dis is the only time the whole motorcycle theme looks sorta cool. The whole show had a way of making city life look aesthetically pleasing, and I feel the cyberpunk-esque artwork here rlly showcases dat.
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Riding under the city lights wif ur team at night. As gangster as dat sounds, its actly drawn to look very beautiful. Add the song to it, and suddenly sorta wish dat u had a bunch of friends u cld do the same wif. It became dis weird thing I wanted to personally experience…
Ofc, doing it in real life probably isn’t the same… Firstly, as stated, we’d probably look like a bunch of YP / matreps or minahs. Secondly, not everyone has a motorbike. I myself dun have one. Mom’s orders, lol.
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The other day, my friends and I were hanging out at Woodlands for dinner.
Some of them decided to rent HelloRide bikes to the place. While the rest of us decided to walk. Eventually they had to park their bikes, so all of us ended up walking to the restaurant anyways.
Walking there was interesting, as it was an area I’d never been to b4. They had nice lights and decorations (probs cos of Raya), and oso not too many ppl around (it was a weekday). So going thru the place at night was actly quite nice. Though, I didn’t think too deeply abt it at the time…
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But looking back, dat moment essentially felt to me like dis:
Made me realise dat we didn’t need fancy motorbikes or compelling life stories to feel like anime characters. All we needed was some pretty lights and friends by our side, and all of a sudden we were Team 5Ds 😎
Hehe, yea… it was a silly feeling dat I’ve always wanted to experience years ago. And it’s now something I can happily say dat I had successfully fulfilled. My heart is full, and I am thankful ☺️
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03.04.2026
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