Well, your initial question was about the characters. And Season 0 is the accepted way of referring to the anime among the YuGiOh fanbase.
Honestly, I don't know if a straight anime adaption of the original manga would do well. Fact is, it's too graphic/disturbing to be a kid's show, but the heavy focus on the theme of friendship would likely prevent it from being taken seriously. It's overall good quality might have it gather a following in Japan, but it's lack of a clear and recognised demographic would mean it probably wouldn't get released in the west. The Duelist manga however is much more marketable as a young shonen series, which is why That version of the anime did so well.
And even though Duelist was based on Duel Monsters, it wasn't an advert for the card game, the game just provided a focus for a running plot, rather than the ever changing and episodic original series.
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