A woman went viral on social media after claiming she left a Yu-Gi-Oh card game event due to how terrible many of the other players smelled.
On April 6, a person posted on X (formerly Twitter) that they were at a local Yu-Gi-Oh trading card tournament at a hobby shop in Japan. The poster claimed they ran into a woman who was competing in the event, but she left halfway through and the original poster blamed it on other players being too aggressive and unwelcoming to new players. Shortly after that post spread around the web, however, a woman on Twitter responded claiming to be the duelist who left early. And she explained it wasn’t due to poor player behavior or losing quickly. Instead, she blamed the terrible odor from other players inside the card shop.
As spotted by ComicBook.com, on Saturday a woman quote-tweeted the original story and claimed she was the one who left early. According to a Twitter translation, she said she left halfway through the tourney because she “couldn’t stand the smell” and added: “It’s not like I lost or was sad.”
When another user replied that her story was “funny,” she responded and said it “smelled so bad it was no laughing matter.”
Another user replied to her viral tweet, posting that the horrible odor was likely the reason the number of “female duelists” in Yu-Gi-Oh wasn’t increasing. In response, the woman clarified that there are some “stinky female duelists” but claimed the smelly men at card game events are often “in a class of their own.”
While some players and users argued that smelly duelists at events were a stereotype and the problem was being overblown, others agreed with the woman’s viral tweet and suggested that they have also left tourneys due to bad body odor.
In fact, things got so bad that in 2019, Konami—the company behind Yu-Gi-Oh—actually updated its official rules to address bad odor and body hygiene. It specifically warned that players wearing dirty clothing or who weren’t clean could be penalized. It seems that hasn’t stopped stinky players from still attending events smelling bad.
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