This story came to be last year when I went back to read some Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction I hadn’t read since high school. Looking at them with adult eyes (I’m 30 now), I was struck by how my perception of them had changed. Much of what had seemed fair to me 15 years ago was now foul, and some things that seemed foul to me then were now fair. And there were things that shone, but with a different light.
In returning to this ancient well, I came back in touch with old ways of thinking, and my creativity was stirred in ways it hadn’t been for a long time. I realized that the authors of these works, these authors whose grasp of English was often even shakier than their grasp of storytelling, these authors with names like Wyhe, Epic Hero Saber, Matt Bahamut, and legendhiro... they were my mentors. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Magician’s Journey is written in gratitude to these mentors.
I have received a great deal from them. The overall plot, especially in the early acts, is derived in large part from a fanfic called Key of the Mind. Each of my chapters is titled after an existing Yu-Gi-Oh! card; this is in imitation of Saber’s Dead Zone. Perhaps I have borrowed too much.
But I think that’s okay, in its own way. I leave so I can return, I venture into yesterday so I can find tomorrow. A thank you to my masters is a goodbye to my past self. In writing The Magician’s Journey, I am — as the cliche goes — bidding farewell to my youth.
Thank you, and goodbye.
But for now, let’s have fun.
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