The year is 2004, or something.

I spent the morning carefully curating and collating the best possible Yu-Gi-Oh! deck from a jumbo tupperware’s worth of monster-fronted cardboard rectangles.

I go to my local Meijer grocery store, which, for some reason, was hosting a Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament (an in-store event that, for some even worse reason, never happens these days).

Using my incredibly overpowered Wave-Motion Cannon, I obliterate another plucky young fellow, who proceeded to yell at me for “not telling him what the card did.” To which I replied, “Well you never asked…”

Needless to say, I lost the next match and got grifted by some older dude who coerced me into trading a good card for a ruddy one.

(I promise you, I am only haunted by this story bidaily, at most.)

So yes, while I was very into the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters trading card game ~15 years ago, I never expected to sit eye-to-blue-eyes with a Yu-Gi-Oh! cereal in the year 2019. FYE’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon Cereal isn’t the first YGO! cereal, either: the first, 2003 version boasted more thematically interesting Millennium Puzzle pieces, and back-of-the-box art that’s way more interesting than Blue-Eyes’ so-last-millennium word puzzle:

But even though the back of the box is a little lazy—and while the side of the box is weirdly specific—the front’s glorious juxtaposition of an LP-smiting dragon and an MS-painted cereal makes this stuff an irresistible novelty for me. Let’s just hope the taste doesn’t churn my stomach like a Crush Card Virus.

For my fellow few who have tried more than one FunkO’s Cereal, I’m sad to report Blue-Eyes Cereal isn’t much different—in fact, I bet the only reason they didn’t make this a FunkO’s Cereal is because Blue-Eyes can’t logically be rendered with soulless black pits for peepers [EDIT: I stand wholeheartedly corrected]

FYE seems to have two solid cereal formulas in their fortress made from old stacks of unsold Tommy Pickles Pops: one that’s just oats and marshmallows, and the other that we taste here: a slightly puckering fruit taste that’s like Trix if its should got banished to the shadow realm. The box describes this stuff as, officially, “Berry Blast,” and “FRUITY RAINBOW BALL CEREAL” on the side. Together, those serve as apt descriptors for a taste that’s equal parts unidentifiable fruit and podunk genericness.

When Blue-Eyes White Dragon Cereal is eaten dry, this is most apparent. While that aforementioned Trixian tang is alright, you have to endure a withering opening salvo from whatever strange, Ziploc-esque plastic bag they store these boring balls in. When Blue-Eyes’ Berry Blast orbs first smack your tongue, there’s a very chemically glaze whose medicinal charmlessness must be powered through before experiencing even a glimmer of fruity sweetness.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, get this: NONE OF THEM ARE EVEN BLUE. I’m not saying the people behind such canon-defying oversight should be sent to the Graveyard, but they should certainly be Banished from Play for a while.

Eat up, buddy. I promise I’ll buy two more of you so we can play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

If there is any silvery-cerulean lining to Berry Blast Cereal, it’s that milk, in almost shocking fashion, washes away the chemical test of strength separating tongue from store-brand Trix. This makes Blue-Eyes a must-milk, as it places the stuff just below real Trix, and way above all-natural Trix. There’s nothing groundbreaking about the experience, but if you want a bowl of something pleasant to mindlessly nosh on while you stare at the (hopefully framed) box art, you could do a whole lot worse—like trusting the Bistro Butcher to not serve you a bowl full of crunchy Man-Eater bugs.

Ultimately, you have to be a hardcore collector and Yu-Gi-Oh! fan (two groups whose Venn diagram forms a perfect Dark Magic Circle) to pay FYE’s premium price of $10+ per box. Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s cereal isn’t quite as pricey as its coffee, but you could still probably buy a complete set of Exodia cards for the same price.

And you’re much less likely to throw those off a boat in disgust than this cereal.

The Bowl: FYE Blue-Eyes White Dragon Berry Blast Cereal

The Bottom Line: Borderline acceptable as a tart Trix-a-like when milked, this overly preserved collector’s item is too caustic when dry to be anything more than eye candy. Silly Yugi, Blue-Eyes White Dragon Cereal isn’t for kids—it’s for adults with disposable income.

The Bottom Line: 5 FIVE GETS out of 10

*Bonus thanks to my friend Kim for supplying the box!