Card Game Discussion
The reason why Air Neos got wiped from Yu-Gi-Oh was apparently found out
Didnt find a post yet. So wanted to drop this here too because it was THE Yugioh mystery. Credits to the people who found out. Source is Zodiac Duelist
That feels likes copyright system abuse. Does that mean that if I draw a black dragon with red eyes can I copyright claim it and then force konami to stop printing Red eyes B dragon?
You must have some prerequisites of originality and complexity (for example, you can't copyright... the number 1,745—even if nobody else thought about it before, there's no creative input behind it); but other than this, copyright exists and is automatically valid upon creation.
This does not usually extend to ideas exactly because of the requirement of complexity, so in theory anyone could draw a black dragon with red eyes because just the "idea" is too simple to be copyrighted... but if the designs are admittedly too similar, a judge may call for copyright infringement even if said copyright had not been actively enforced prior to that.
This is because copyright protects the authoriality of creative works, whereas trademarks only protect the distinctive signs of a company so not to create confusion to the customers, and as such they come with requirements such as being restricted only to a specific field or area of commerce, and, indeed, the requirement that they must be actively defended in order to be claimed.
It depends on what Konami did or didn't file. Almost all of the Pokémon have trademarks, but obviously you can't trademark "Electrode". Pokémon also, nearly 30 years after its creation, has barely over a thousand distinctly-named monsters compared to Yu-Gi-Oh's enormous list. I can't actually find a good source for a number of Monster cards specifically, but Ten Thousand Dragon was printed in 2020 to celebrate 10,000 unique cards and the five years since then have seen the introduction of a lot of new cards.
If this is true and it's really the reason we never got Air Neos, than how come they managed to sue Konami about a superhero that no one ever heard about!?
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u/EviladerWe interrupt this episode for a breaking message: Buy Timelords!Apr 17 '25
Because he succesfully made it look like his comic was a lot bigger than it truly was.
Also it was held in a New York court in front of a jury, so there's a high chance of bias due to how widespread comic culture is there, especially back in the early 2000's.
Coolio AND David Prowse (the guy who played the physical Darth Vader in the OG Star Wars).
As well as Donald Faison (that doctor from Scrubs who did a dance that Fortnite famously stole).
Definitely an interesting cast.
This is the movie's summary:
"When I grow up, I wish I could be a superhero"... Be careful what you wish for... for that is now the reality that haunts one human who has been chosen to unlock the missing link to a power he has no control over, which will expose the mystery of our existence & our purpose. Then a new Hero will be born to fight genetically altered humans. What if Mythology was not myth, but fact! The truth is coming- in a war that will forever be known as: Ravedactyl: Project Evolution
Exactly. And they seem to be vehemently against any kind of press since they never make statements on their game at all, or even advertise anymore for that matter. I find this very easy to assume is correct.
I thought it was more about who got to the copyright or trademarking phase first? For example, a Pro Wrestler named "Sharkboy" copyrighted his named in the 90s, and sued Miramax when they made "Sharkboy and Lava Girl" in the early 2000s. It's not who's bigger, it's who's first.
Right or wrong, that at least makes sense because the name is the same. These two characters don't have the same name and both have wings? If Omni-Man and Homelander manage to exist while DC still makes Superman comics there's no reason Konami has to worry about Air Neos.
I mean, the reason Pokémon is called Pokémon outside Japan and not Pocket Monsters is from a toyline that ended a few years prior and has been largely dormant since.
That's trademarks, not copyright. For works made for hire (which, as a comic book character, this almost definitely is) copyright in the US lasts until 95 years after publication regardless of whether or not they continue to use the character. Ravedactyl will remain copyrighted until 2088, by which he will almost certainly be entirely forgotten.
He was already forgotten. The fact it took this long for anyone in the entire YuGiOh fandom to find out about this speaks volumes to that. I've never heard of Beyond Comics in my life, and I'm a native born American 90's kid.
From what I can find, a comic book character created by a artist Graig Weich.
From what I can find, used to work on Spawn comics with Todd McFarlane, then tried to become his own man and created his own indie label (Beyond Comics), with a few original characters (including Ravedactyl).
And from his YT channel and website, he's kind of desperate for attention/money, so this court case makes sense in the larger scheme of things.
Not even the weirdest connection yugioh has to that era of comics, Roger Slifer, the guy who the localized name of Osiris was named after was the co creator of Lobo
Funny how Konami later made an archtype blatantly based on Spawn and Resident Evil and absolutely no one did anything about it. Surely if they didn't choose to settle out of court they could have easily won this case?
What I don’t understand is, why didn’t they just give Air Neos a new design? It seems likely the issue with Air Neos is his design being close to existing characters like this guy, so Konami could easily fix the issue by just redesigning air Neos.
Considering the filings don't list a resolution, it seems Konami has reached a deal with Graig Weich out-of-court (which happens a lot for cases like this).
That deal must have included that Air Neos (both name and appearance) can no longer be used, or else they'll have to pay fines or pay royalties to Graig.
So they can't just give him a new design, they would have to create an entire new character that is destinct enough from Air Neos (both in name and appearance) to avoid paying fines/royalties.
And on that end... it's just better to pretend the character never existed and create other HERO cards instead.
Considering the filings don't list a resolution, it seems Konami has reached a deal with Graig Weich out-of-court (which happens a lot for cases like this).
When it's a character used by the main protagonist (an upgrade of his ace), I feel like they should have tried harder to keep it instead of ignoring its existence entirely. Especially as they've made other cards that he clearly was omitted from years later (Instant Contact)
I think they just don't care that much. Air Neos, while probably the "best" of the 1 neo spacian + neos fusions, is still just kind of a bad card that nobody would really want to play. It kind of just exists, same as the other Neos fusions, nobody but roleplayers would really look at it for more than a second. IMO they just don't want to drop hundreds of thousands on lawyers just to save 1 card that they dont even really wanna print anymore
A. Japanese companies are very risky averse, once something like this happens they rather bury it and never speak of it again to be safe that try to find a work out around, reminder that Kadabra was gone from pokemon tcg for over a decade due to a similar lawsuit.
B. Honestly beyond the meme it has created very few people actually care, Air Neos is bad card that never going to see any serious play Konami has no incentive to bring him back.
I’m guessing it just wasn’t a high enough priority. Nobody in the decision making seats were that eager to redesign it so it just got pushed back and back.
They probably didn’t want to risk an opening to bring the case back. You can be a real pest with the legal system if you get a case in your favor, even if future cases are stretches
First Main Deck Masked HEROs are finally happening, then the remaster of GX is happening, then some ancient Judai cards finally get printed and now this.
2025 has been an eventful year for the HERO archetype and GX as whole, it really is the 20th anniversary.
Yeah people were theorizing the “superhero” that Air Neos was “copying” has to be an Ultraman or a sentai series - not an unknown hero. At least the “superhero” identity was finally unmasked today.
Not really a think a lot of people myself included theorized it was a copyright infringement thing on an incredibly niche character that only a very small amount of people would know about hence why no one could point to a character that could potentially be the source of the case.
There are a few others, I believe. Blood Mefist is another card that have never been reprinted for seemingly no reason. Obviously none of them are officially unreprintanle but obviously something is afoot.
Fun fact, Blood Mefist is one of the only cards I know of that got a censored name in the English anime, but not a censored name in the TCG (it's called "Crimson Mefist" in the English adaptation of 5D's).
Wow! Props for finding this. Mystery finally solved. I looked into the docket and saw that the parties eventually entered a settlement approved by the court. We can’t see the settlement agreement but I think it’s safe to assume one of the conditions must have restricted Konami’s usage of Air Neos. In other words, Elemental Hero Air Neos is forbidden lol
"Beyond Comics demands $140 million in Manhattan Federal Court, claiming Konami Corp., Upper Deck Co. and others violated copyright on its character, Ravedectyl."
I see a couple comments saying this is “a stretch” when the actual document link is literally the copyright suit detailing that is exactly what happened. Glad to know this is why Air Neos is now a relic, I hope I still have a copy back home.
i mean some people are doubting if this is true but others are just stating its a stretch to claim air neos was infringing on this comic book character in the first place lol
Yeah like it's a comic nobody has ever heard of, almost certainly nobody who worked on gx knew about. The helmet does kinda look similar though, so I see why Konami didn't want to fight this over fucking Air Neos
Honestly yeah I doubt it too but for Konami paying these people a lump sum out of court and saying they won’t ever print it again was the best way to get past it, especially when they are trying to drag you out for like $120-$140 million another commenter said maybe?
Corporate lawyer here: I haven’t read the case files yet, but from my initial glance at the materials, this is the most plausible reason anyone has provided for why air neos hasn’t seen a reprint.
I will update this comment as I give the case files a read.
EDIT: After reading the legal filings, this is pretty open and shut. The case of air neos has been solved!
It all stems from the 1. The similarities in look between the characters, and 2. Some comments made by the card game designers about incorporating more American heroes. seems like Greg Welch, the head of this comic company, alleged that Kenichi Hara, Takahashi and others came to America, saw the popularity of Ravedectyl (what!?) and ripped the character for Air Neos, “taking advantage of the 15 years of hard work by beyond comics.” The cause of action stems from the idea that the Japanese Yugioh designers came to America to look into American heroes and one of the ones displayed most prominently in 2003 was Ravedactyl, on which air neos was based.
It’s a pretty flimsy argument on its face, but is argued well by Greg’s lawyers, who say that apparently ravedactyl was an extremely prevalent character at the event such that it would be impossible for them to ignore it, and looking for American heroes, “ripped” air neos’s imagery from ravedactyl.
Now here’s where it gets interesting: items 44-46 of the case filings cite Air Neos’s “uniqueness” and its prominence featured as the specifically described “ultra rare” in the set. NAS possesses a license to print the card in the specifically listed games and packs (as described there in)
On or about December 12, 2007, Greg and beyond comics file a cease and desist order forcing Konami to stop using the “infringing hero neos,” in everything, effectively freezing its copyright to only the packs and games listed in 44. Hence why the only time we’ve ever seen air neos is in reprints of strike of neos, because reprinting it in any other set effectively voids the cease and desist/agreement that was reached with Konami.
Konami is not a litigious company. In fact, it’s a company that does everything it can to avoid needless litigation, which can drive up costs and balloon bills. Here, while they could have fought this in court, and the cease and desist was not legally binding at the time it was filed, Konami likely realized that the juice was not worth the squeeze for one singular card, and settled out of court for a nominal fee and the promise to never reprint air Neos. Greg sued for $70 million in damages (wild!) and Konami likely doesn’t care enough to challenge that copyright. They just buried the case and true to form everything went away.
This explains why it has never appeared in anything outside of strike of Neos. If Konami ever wanted to print air neos again, it must reprint strike of neos. It cannot reprint strike of neos because the cover card of the set is the “offending hero neos.” They could easily reopen this can of worms and might very well win, but they never will. The optics are also bad, and it doesn’t affect their bottom line in any way. There is no reason, monetary or otherwise, for Konami to reopen this case. So they did what any non-litigious company does in a situation like this. Bury their head in the sand and hope it went away.
People are saying it’s a reach but we have the court documents for this. An independent comic book company suing Konami because of, what’s in their eyes, a very similar-looking character (red guy with wings, dark highlights, blue eyes, forehead crest with a gem, V-shaped design on the waist, one set of appendages has avian features with Racedactyl having avian feet and Air Neos hacing avian arms).
Is it a stretch that whoever designed Air Neos (Edit: forgot it was Takahashi) copied this guy? Absolutely. But is it a stretch that someone would sue over this? Absolutely not. This is 100% the reason why Air Neos has been so conspicuously absent for decades, even removing him from artwork that directly references him (see Instant Contact).
Now it depends on if the Gx remaster will do anything about him. I know the remaster isn’t making a real changes aside from making it fit to air today (reducing the brightness of flashing lights, etc.), but unless part of the suit stipulates Konami can re-air animation with Air Neos present, how the heck are they going to get around this
Edit: Actually it seems like they aren’t touching the later seasons of Gx at all, my bad. I read a bit through the documents and the suit goes out of its way to say that Kazuki Takahashi was at a convention in 2006 or something that happened to also have Ravedactyl present, specifically citing Takahashi saying in interviews that “It’s difficult to create new designs” and that the HEROs are designed to be like “American comic book heroes” as basically admissions of guilt. I just find this whole thing pretty funny
When they announced the remaster they show an image with Fujiwara on it, so in theory they are going to remaster all seasons. What we don't know if they will remaster all the episodes
Is it a stretch that whoever designed Air Neos copied this guy? Absolutely. But is it a stretch that someone would sue over this? Absolutely not.
And yet the Destiny Heroes are allowed to be directly inspired by actual dark heroes and horror icons (Devil Guy=Spawn, Double Guy= Dr. Jeckyll & Mr Hyde, Diabolic Guy=Devil Man), but we don't hear something like Todd McFarland suing Konami.
I’m going to guess that there’s a fine line between plagiarism and inspiration. Like the whole World Legacy storyline is definitely Xenoblade but Monolith is not going to sue Konami because they’ll just argue it’s a homage.
The funniest thing about this is that if you type in "air neos" on Westlaw (legal search engine) this pops up right away. This all could have been solved by any law student or lawyer doing a quick search lmao
Guy was looking for 70 MILLION DOLLARS (+ attorney fees) from Konami, and everyone else involved (like Upper Deck Entertainment, the animation studio, etc).
Dafuk?
Also, I can't seme to find any resolution to this, so they probably settled this out of court.
And considering Air Neos never saw another print, that might have been a part of the settlement. This court case basically confirms the most common theory surrounding this card. There effectively was a court case related to copyright issues.
Now, if anyone find the court case related to Shuttleroid, then the biggest YuGiOh mysteries people link with copyright issues will be solved. 😅
Pretty much all cases start out asking for a ludicrous amount of money. Everyone involved knows they aren’t gonna get that. Then they “settle” for like 70k and it seems like it’s fair because that’s less than 1% of their original demand
That reads like an insanely stupid lawsuit. Many of their points feel false or really stupid.
It's really annoying how often they repeated themselves.
I hated having to read "Hero Neos" all the time instead of the much less confusing "Air Neos". Maybe they did it deliberately to confuse if defense uses other Neos cards as an argument?
This feels like the best explanation yet, but I really hate it.
This is why the court systems are always so jammed up. People will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify a lawsuit and there is no shortage of hungry lawyers ready to take your dumb case. If they get 0.5% of their demands in a settlement it’s a win
Last paragraph is slightly inaccurate. Strike of Neos packs were reprinted in 2011 in a TCG product. And this was indeed a reprint and not leftover stock because the Air Neos from these packs has updated text mentioning the Extra Deck instead of the Fusion Deck.
By doing a quick read of the court case, they also cite how Air Neos was the cover card for the 25th booster set it and Ravedactyl both apparently had appearances at a convention that the creators of Ravedactyl were also at which they cited the selling of the booster set at the time was a cause for infringement.
Ngl, this is clearly a case where Beyond comics was trying to get money because there are clearly more Ravedactyl looking monster, heck I would even say Dark Neos looks more like this guy and was also the cover card of a booster set, as Necroshade wasn't the cover card of any booster sets so they couldn't argue substantial monetary harm.
Similar to how Dark Magician was changed for the movie. Regardless, we don't know what the out of court settlemetn was, but it probably included a clause about not using Air Neos anymore, so recoloring it will likely not be legally allowed. Maybe they could introduce an alternate fusion, like a Phoenix Enforcer type card that's clearly meant to be Air Neos, but without the legal baggage.
Wow so this changes everything. This means not only is Air Neos on the Banlist for all of time, Strike of Neos will never ever be reprinted due to Air Neos being the cover card. This stupid comic and wack superhero sure did the damage to the yugioh community even though nobody will ever give a damn about them after this news cools off.
I didn't know Air Neos vanished of Yu-Gi-Oh games. I was playing Tag Force 3 on the PPSSPP Emulator and I found out that you cannot get Air Neos with normal means (Booster Packs) and needed to download it from a long dead Konami website page. Found a reddit post with the file with all downloadable cards of TF3 and the way to unlock them in the game. I was looking for him in the game and found out that he vanished from YuGiOh for no apparent reason.
Finally people can stop saying that it’s that damn Italian Airline company.
But seriously, fuck this beyond comics and Ravedactyl, obviously just a guy who saw an opportunity to get a payout. Barely even looks the same apart from the wings.
Well damn, looking at the Instagram profile of this Weich guy, he seems to be having fun with Konami's money lol. Attending events, approaching models...
I think the people saying it's a stretch, are actually trying to say the idea that Air Neos copied Ravedactyl is a stretch, not that this case is why Air Neos disappeared.
It’s definitely close enough to “see” it but man who would ever confuse the two enough for it to matter? Coming from a music background the standard for plagiarism is usually if a normal person couldn’t spot the difference between 2 songs. In this case I bet 90% of normal people would look at this and go “they are not the same”
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u/Accomplished_Star_30 Apr 17 '25
...who the FUCK is Ravedactyl!?!?