Divinegon said:
Glad to see Shadyvox in The Escapist.
For those who don't know Shadyvox is an internet voice actor that has done several things the youtube series Yu-gi-Oh GX and Digimon Abridged, as well as some songs like the Yu-gi-Oh rap battle and Jaden's rap [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5oEyFa9XQI], along with voice overs on other songs [http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/389825].
Even so, this episode, even after I watched it three more times, felt incredibly dry and not very funny. I've seen the Yu-Gi-Oh GX and Abridgemon parodies, but none of these shows are funny to me, likely because I see the source material as strong to begin with, so there's really nothing to make fun of.
------------
I'm not a fan of the X-number-of-shows-within-a-parody-show stuff like this; there's simply too many popping up and they lack any real creativity.
While one of my favorite anime, Comic Party, does make references to other anime, it doesn't do so in a parody sense, I.E. it doesn't depend on the viewers knowledge of the subject at hand to make the show funny. It tells it's own funny story, Kazuki getting roped into the world of doujunshi by his friend, but adds references and minor parodies to other shows like Cyborg 009 and To Heart.
That's the problem that I see with this: It may pick shows that many people likely know to parody, but then it expects people to know what they are trying to make a joke about instead of hinting that this IS a joke about something. For instance, the Master Ball waffle iron, item descriptions (Seriously, Disgaea has been doing this for years, and they're better at it), encountering a challenger trainer, ect., ect.
Also, if you're going to parody something, make the main protagonist unique while retaining some of the elements of the show you're making fun of. This main guy was just a cosmetic mix of Yugi and Ash with next to no original personality of his own. Why not have him as someone new, lacking Ash's clothes and Yugi's half hair? That would've been better to do.
I don't have very high hopes for this. It looks like a bad blend of concepts that should have been handled by someone else.
--------------
However, to be fair and to show where I'm coming from, I will give an example of what I think a good parody series should be like. Start with a bad/poorly done show, and make it better by making some alterations the concept, poking fun at the characters on a regular basis, and adding clear instances of pop culture/anime into dialogue, unless you can disguise the joke well.
[HEADING=2]For example, I direct you to Sonic F, a parody show done right.[/HEADING]