Yugi v. R-H was first
In B.C. We're quickly immersed.
Exodia was tamed,
Said "remember my name",
Keep Red-Eyes and tackle the worst!

Espa Roba v. Joey came next
A psychic charade has us vexed
Though things may turn dire,
Young siblings inspire,
And Jinzo is easily perplexed.

L-F was then fought; Mako's fish
Joey's Giant Trunade would out-dish
Two villains unite,
Two wrongs don't make a right;
Two R-H's stop Kaiba? They wish!

Two-on-two for the fate of our souls
(Battle City's most common duel toll)
Mokuba gets away,
Joey's mind Marik plays,
And Tristan and Serenity roll.

This chopper's a tense place to be;
A debate between Kaiba and Yugi!
Marik's bad, the Pharaoh's back,
And Joey's NOT a hack;
Yugi promises to set them free.

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Background:
As a fan, I only began following the series shortly after Battle City was over; my first new episodes were the Waking the Dragons/Orichalcos saga. However, the first round of Battle City especially will always have a special place in my heart. The first duel I seriously pursued was The Master of Magicians, in July of 2004, and the first I remember obsessing over was one that I now have about a third of committed to memory, Friends 'Til the End. It became a ritual I would look forward to: an episode every night at 8:30pm. Early in my freshman year of high school, episodes began showing at seven and six A.M., and I would wake up early to catch them. By October, I had begun to take notes, and my episode guide was born. I have many fond memories of rolling out of bed fully awake in the gray twilight of dawn, and running downstairs with notebook and pen in hand, handwriting notes in realtime. The first round of Battle City was my first taste of a world in which friendship, honor, courage, and heart were everything, and despite the three or four years that passed since that time, when I finally began seeing it again a few months ago, I had barely forgotten a thing.

1. The first duel of Battle City (it's canon; Kaiba commented (to the effect) that it has a certain poetic irony to it having Yugi of all people kick things off) occurred in the episodes "Yugi vs. the Rare Hunter" I and II. What's notable about this duel is that Yugi found out his opponent was trying to summon Exodia, a monster that automatically grants its summoner victory, and became the first person to defeat it; that this was the first time Yugi heard his enemy's name, and he swears he will never forget that moment (the quote it referred to was "Remember my name: Marik!"); and finally that after Yugi won Joey's Red-Eyes Black Dragon back form the Rare Hunter who stole it, Joey told Yugi to keep it, because facing the Rare Hunters, he'll probably need all the help he can get.
I used a lot of abbreviations in this. RH is "Rare Hunter" in my hard-copy notes, it follows logically that "Yugi vs. RH" is shorthand for this episode, and BC is my standard abbreviation for Battle City. I started this limerick by thinking of what, minimum, needed to be said about this episode: it's the start of Battle City; Yugi becomes the first to defeat Exodia; it contains the line, "Remember my name: Marik!"; and Joey gives Red-Eyes to Yugi.

2. The next duel of the Battle City Tournament that we follow, "ESP Duelist" I and II, is when Joey accepts a challenge from a duelist named Espa Roba who claims to be psychic. It's a ruse, naturally. Espa's nastiest, rarest card is Jinzo, a tall cyborg that can destroy all traps; Joey wins it off him in this duel. A common theme in this duel is that Espa Roba's little brothers motivate him to duel, and Joey's younger sister Serenity inspires him. In the end, Joey and Espa aren't so different. Inspiration from younger siblings is something of a theme in this episode, so I made sure to include it.

 3. After that, in "The Master of Magicians" I-III, Yugi finds himself in a duel with the Rare Hunter Arkana, who claims to be the true master of the Dark Magician, a card Yugi is famed for wielding and his personal favorite. It's a duel of Dark Magician vs. Dark Magician, but Yugi has one more trick up his sleeve, in the form of Dark Magician Girl's debut. After the duel, Yugi once again is confronted by Marik, using his Millennium Rod to speak through Arkana as a puppet. He tauntingly reveals that he has important information that may be of interest to Yugi tattooed on his back.
I laugh every time I read the final line of this one, because it's almost an afterthought, and it's actually one of the most important pieces to the overall plot.

 4. On the second day of the tournament, which begins with the episode "Playing With a Parasite" I and II, Joey gets into a duel with Weevil Underwood, an old rival from Duelist Kingdom. Characteristically, he pulls a fast one on Joey in the form of slipping a crippling parasite card into his deck. Joey still triumphs, though, using Weevil's own Aerosol Spray card against him. Meanwhile, recovering from surgery in the hospital, Serenity makes a new friend, a little boy named Kenta who's scared to get an X-ray. She hides him in return for helping her follow the tournament, and, inspired by Joey's duel, Kenta decides to be brave and get the X-ray.
Weevil is a scummy, scummy cheater and *would* never duel a fair fight.

5. Meanwhile, in "Mime Control" I-III, Yugi encounters Marik's latest Rare Hunter, a mime named Strings, whose deck has been stacked with Slifer the Sky Dragon itself. Yugi is nearly defeated when Kaiba shows up, hard on the trail of an Egyptian God Card, and can't believe his eyes; "On your feet, Yugi!" he shouts. "Since when do you bow to your rivals?! If you still have what it takes, then get up and prove it to me, now!" Also, not mentioned in the limerick, Yugi wins, gets Slifer, and Marik threatens that he'll exploit Yugi's one weakness: his friends. Kaiba wants to duel Yugi for Slifer, but Yugi won't accept a challenge until his friends are safe. They go looking for Joey and the others...
I'm so glad I came up with the line about the defender slime. The reference in this was very intricate, before, with the line "And his monster (too bad that Red rhymes)". I had trouble rhyming "Slifer", though I succeeded with it unexpectedly during Round 2, so I originally made a reference to a GX episode. Jaden Yuki, of the Slifer Red dorm at Duel Academy, is dueling against the Paradox Brothers, a pair of duelists who speak in rhyme. At one point Jaden quips, "Y'know, I'm starting to wish they'd named us Slifer Orange. Then we wouldn't have to listen to all these lame rhymes!" 'Too bad that Red rhymes', as in Slifer Red (which was named after this monster), as in Slifer the Sky Dragon. It was a stretch, but I liked it, but I'm still glad that this doesn't need as much explaining anymore. I seem to recall also with this one, I picked one thing (in this case "mime") to start from as something to rhyme with. I've found through trial and error that aids to memory and catchy things work best if the fact itself, not what you say about it, is rhymed.

6. ...Who, meanwhile, in "Legendary Fisherman" I and II, have found another old friend from Duelist Kingdom, Mako Tsunami, the ocean duelist. He and Joey duel, Joey wins with a card called "Giant Trunade". Meanwhile meanwhile, Marik himself arrives in Domino and runs headlong into Yami Bakura, who's after the Millennium Rod. They agree to work together; Marik promises the Rod and the whereabouts of other Items, if Yami Bakura wins him some cards. Elsewhere, Yugi is stopped in his search for his friends by a pair of Rare Hunters sent to stall him. Since there are two, Yugi and Kaiba take them on in a double duel and Kaiba smashes them into the pavement with Obelisk.
Nothing to say here. I think I wrote this one, and the ones surrounding it, during my one and only Saturday school. Ms. Enzweiler got a kick out of me sitting there writing limericks all morning, I think.

7 . "Double Duel" I-IV. Leaving the aquarium after Joey defeated Mako, Joey gets a call from Serenity, who can take the bandages off her eyes that night. Before Joey can stop him, Tristan (who has a huge crush on Serenity) volunteers to go pick her up and dashes off to the hospital. Next they meet a stranger named Namu, who found Bakura lying on the ground, injured. Grandpa takes him to the hospital, leaving Joey and Téa to befriend Namu, whom they are unaware is actually Marik. Joey, Téa, and Mokuba are kidnapped by the Rare Hunters, and Yugi and Kaiba are blackmailed into a high-stakes and disadvantageous double duel. With Téa's help, Mokuba escapes and finds Yugi and Kaiba as soon as the duel's over; Tristan takes Serenity on a train to Domino, trying and failing to attract her attention on the way; and Marik uses the Millennium Rod to make Joey and Téa his puppets.
Battle City is all shadow games. You get used to the stakes being one duelist's soul or the other. It's so dramatic and corny, it's charming.

8. In "The Rescue", Yugi, Kaiba, and Mokuba take a helicopter to where Mokuba escaped from. Along the way, Kaiba asks Yugi to tell him about Marik, Yugi tells him everything he knows, and Kaiba doesn't believe a word. They also disagree on Joey's skill as a duelist; Kaiba just doesn't like Joey. The episode ends with them about to land; Yugi vows silently, "Not to worry, my friends; I promise I will set you free!"
It's hard not to laugh when Yugi and Kaiba end up stuck in the same place with no distractions for fifteen minutes. The only thing funnier would be Joey and Kaiba having to keep each other company that long; they would drive each other insane. But seriously, Kaiba doesn't believe anything that Yugi tells him, no matter what evidence presents itself. There is no one more stubborn or with more *issues* than Seto Kaiba.

9. Marik has a trap ready and waiting when Yugi arrives to rescue his friends in "Friends 'Til the End" I-IV. Joey and Téa are both entirely under Marik's control, and Marik tries to use Joey to win Slifer and the Millennium Puzzle from Yugi. The stakes of the duel are that both duelists are chained to an anchor that will drop either when one duelist wins or after an hour has passed (so Yugi can't just refuse to duel to save Joey), and the winner wins the key to escape from the chains in time to save himself. It seems that, either way, they will not both get out of this alive. Yugi refuses to give up, and continues to try to reach the real Joey through Marik's mind control, using Red-Eyes and even giving Joey something that is just as dear to him: the Millennium Puzzle itself. Meanwhile, Tristan and Serenity arrive in Battle City, and with the help of a few old friends, evade capture by the Rare Hunters and make it to Yugi, Joey, and Téa, just in time for Serenity to unwrap her eyes and save Joey's life.
I decided that, since they already rhymed it, I had to rhyme "friend" and "end", and that's a very effective nod to which episode this is. This is another of those classically dramatic Battle City duels. If you can suspend your disbelief, they're actually quite poetic and beautiful.

10. "Shadow of a Duel" and the next episode are a prelude to the Finals. It takes six locator cards to get there, and Yugi, Joey, and Mai all qualify. Yami Bakura, pressed by his deal with Marik, wakes up in the hospital (he injured Bakura, so Marik could pretend to save him and win Joey and Téa's confidence) and sets out to enter the Finals. Directed by some bystanders, he explores the cemetery in search of duelists. Suddenly three zombies leap out at him: "You have entered the realm of the living dead!" "It's not a very nice place!" "In fact, it's a bloomin' nightmare!" Yami Bakura unmasks Bonz, Syd, and Zigor, three lowlifes from Duelist Kingdom. They've scared five locator cards off of unwary duelists, and Yami Bakura challenges Bonz to duel, all or nothing; if neither gets six tonight, they probably won't reach the finals at all. Bonz and his buddies are no match for Yami Bakura or his shadow game; the locator cards are his.
Bonz, Syd and Zigor thought the reddish-purple fog was just fog; they had no clue about the shadow game. The 'red fog' line is a favorite of mine, just because it illustrates how very much Yami Bakura took advantage of their stupidity and ignorance. You already knew that Bonz, Syd, and Zigor were sunk when they met Yami Bakura.

11. On their way to the Finals, Mai and Yugi's crowd run into ninja movie star Jean-Claude Magnum, who wants to marry Mai. This creates some amusing romantic tension between Mai and Joey, who also have a bit of a thing going that neither one will ever admit to. Mai beats Jean in a duel, then he tries to kidnap her, and Joey catches her when she falls from the getaway plane (with his face); Mai tells Jean to take a hike. The only real action hero around here is Joey!
Gotta love two-syllable rhymes. "JCM" is my shorthand for Jean-Claude Magnum. Joey actually *is* seeing stars after that, and I love that last line because, not to toot my own horn, but sometimes I come up with some really clever lines.