Just to dispell some myths.
1. Yes you can have a successful TCG without a current manga, anime, movie or anything else.
2. Mr. Takahashi is the artist who created the manga, he also creates the cards, and owns the rights to the characters and names.
3. There have been any number of times where the manga (as well as the anime) have used a different picture, name, effect, etc. than what is released for the OCG or TCG. They are parallel media, they both generate income, they both are the intellectual property of
The Creator, and for the most part they benefit each other to further each product and keep them popular. But to use one as a measure of the other would be incredibly wrong.
I can understand an anime purist complaining about the changes from the original Japanese to what 4Kids releases here. I can sympathize with the bad feelings that the TCG does not receive all of the cards released in the OCG. To a small extent I can even see complaining about card name translations and artwork changes from OCG to TCG. But nome of these are Kevin's fault
(okay he could be fighting harder to get the unreleased cards).