In case you weren't aware, Yugioh kicks all kinds of ass

Yup, I finished watching the original series in Japanese

If you grew up in the early 2000's or had a child that did, you have heard of this card game sensation. The revolutionary English dub produced by 4Kids Entertainment ran on TV on Saturday mornings, perfect for little snots like me to follow the adventures of a plucky high schooler with the most normal hair in the world. Miraculously, the anime didn't feel like an advertisement for the card game at all (because it wasn't, but we'll get to that later); it had a compelling plot with inspiring, if corny, themes, not to mention unforgettable characters.

It's no secret that the dub was heavily edited from the original Japanese broadcast to be suitable for what 4Kids imagined their audience to be. Because of this, I recently watched the entire series in the original Japanese for the first time. Yup. All 224 episodes of it. And let me tell you, it's even better than the dub I grew up on. In this post, I'm going to give my thoughts on not only the show itself, but what the dub did to it. At this point, you're probably looking at the scrollbar, and I am so sorry.

Yugioh! (but from 1998)

But first, some history. You see, Yugioh wasn't always about a card game. The anime we know and love starts adapting from volume 8 of the original manga. So what about the first seven?

Yugioh started as a dark suspense manga. High school first-year Mutou Yuugi loves games, but his only real friend is the childhood friend who's stuck with him for years, Mazaki Anzu. One day, he solves an ancient Egyptian puzzle, thus becoming possessed by a darker and more sinister personality. Yugi gains new friends, but little does he realize that his dark side is tormenting his enemies with twisted Shadow Games.

Here's an example: an escaped convict has taken Anzu hostage at the burger joint where she works, demanding that Yugi bring him his food because of how wimpy he looks. But when Yugi sits down, Dark Yugi emerges and challenges the man to a Shadow Game for Anzu's life. The rules are simple: each player is only allowed to move one finger of their right hand. The first to break this rule loses. The convict chooses his trigger finger, and Dark Yugi chooses his thumb. He uses it to light a lighter, which he then sets down on the back of the convict's left hand, still pouring a glass of alcohol. Now the convict is checkmated; if he moves his left hand at all, the lighter will fall off and ignite the alcohol now spilling over onto the table and into his lap. He can't even fire the gun he's holding, for fear that the recoil will jostle his left hand. This throws him into a panic, causing him to lose the Shadow Game and be driven insane by the darkness of his own heart.

All kinds of games are featured in these early days of the series, including an original card game called Wizards and Magic, though you might know it by the name they changed it to for the volume releases and the anime: Duel Monsters.

Yup, this part of the series got an anime too. It got 27 episodes and a movie in 1998, produced by Toei Animation. Because of how much its successor overshadowed it, not too many people remember it, leading people to give it the moniker of "Season 0." It looks like this:

You might think this line looks rather awful, and it is. Sadly, it's the best-translated line in this god-forsaken sub by a country mile.

Yes, that's Kaiba Seto, and yes, his hair is green. 1998 times were weird.

The series centers around the four characters you remember from the Duel Monsters anime, plus one more: Nosaka Miho, an airheaded money-grubber who's a natural at playing with Honda's heart to get all the shiny valuables she wants. She was actually only ever a background character in one chapter of the manga, but they added her to the main cast for the anime, and it shows. All of her lines disrupt the atmosphere among the group and result in her strongarming her way into focus for the scene. It's also painfully clear in many episodes that she plays a role originally meant for Anzu, who gets sidelined.

Which is a shame, because she actually has a personality in this series. She's feisty and outspoken, and she doesn't take shit from anyone. She's also a more overt love interest for Yugi, the boy often blushing at her charms and expressing jealousy at implications that she might have eyes for someone else. For her part, she spends much of the series gradually trying to uncover the identity of the bad boy who keeps saving her life, even to the point of deliberately putting herself in danger to smoke him out.

That's more or less the only real sense of plot progression in this anime, by the way. There's a minor plot where Kaiba keeps siccing hired goons on Yugi to defeat him, but that wasn't really necessary for the Death-T arc. It would at least make some sense if the series ended on the Death-T arc, but it's actually followed by one last arc in which Dark Bakura imprisons the gang's souls in figurines for a TTRPG, and Dark Yugi has to win the game to save them.

While there's not too much of a plot in this anime, there's more character growth than you might think. In this series, Yugi manages to look, sound, and act even more like a toddler than in the Duel Monsters anime, due in no small part to being voiced by Ogata Megumi. She had voiced Ikari Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion) a few years prior and would go on to voice Naoi Ayato (Angel Beats), Naegi Makoto (Dingle Rumpus), and Komaeda Nagito (Super Dingle Rumpus 2) in the coming decades, so she's no stranger to voicing male characters, but the thing is she has a very specific voice she does for that, and she only used it for Dark Yugi here. Regular Yugi? He sounds like a three-year-old. He never gets over this, but while he gets beat up basically once an episode, you can see him gradually come out of his shell as the series goes on and grow more confident in his interactions with Anzu and his new friends.

But the character who shows the most growth is, surprisingly, Dark Yugi. At the beginning of the series, he's merciless and sadistic, seeming to use his friends' peril as an excuse to torture the aggressors, but as time goes on, he develops genuine concern for them, as well as a moral code toward his adversaries, best shown when he saves Mokuba from his punishment for losing the fourth game at Death-T. By the time he's leading his friends in the fight against Zorc in Dark Bakura's TTRPG, he's the upstanding, chivalrous gamer we know and love from the Duel Monsters anime. He's still dark and mysterious, as evidenced by his bad-boy speech patterns and the labyrinth within his mind that nearly kills Shadi, but he can be safely described as a good guy.

That's not to say this anime is good, though. The animation is shit, Ogata Megumi is a poor fit for Yugi, and Yukana somehow managed to make Miho even more annoying than she would've been otherwise. It's perhaps a good thing that the IP was handed to Studio Gallop when the time came to adapt the rest of the series in 2000.

Yugioh! Duel Monsters

Background

Yup, I busted out the ol' h3 tag for the first time since my Toshikai post. That's how you know this is gonna be meaty.

Duel Monsters cropped up every now and again even in the early days of Yugioh, and readers really seemed to like it. For this reason, Takahashi-sensei decided to make it the focus of the lengthy Duelist Kingdom arc, and the overwhelming response cemented it as the main game of nearly the entire rest of the series.

It's for this reason that the sequel to the 1998 anime included the card game's name in its title and even decided to be a soft reboot. It's a little weird, actually: the first episode does nothing to introduce the characters. You're expected to know who they are already, relying on brief, infrequent flashbacks to recount important character moments from Season 0 like Yugi standing up to Ushio for Honda and Jounouchi or the gang discovering Anzu's part-time job. And yet this initial episode is a retread and revamping of plot points that had already been covered: it's a mash-up of Kaiba's introductory chapter and his duel with Yugi at the climax of the Death-T arc.

But you know what? It kinda works. Sure, it doesn't explicitly tell you much about these people, but you can quickly grasp their personalities and relationships based on how they act with each other. And Yugi's new voice actor can't act worth a damn, but it's balanced out by Kaiba's new voice actor somehow managing to be even more Midorikawa than the actual Midorikawa, who voiced him in Season 0. It's a surprisingly strong start to the new series.

Duelist Kingdom (episodes 1-40)

When Yugi's grandpa gets his soul stolen by Pegasus J. Crawford, the creator of Duel Monsters, our spiky-haired hero has little choice but to participate in the goofy American's tournament: Duelist Kingdom.

Even if you don't play the card game, it's easy for the duels in this arc to look like Takahashi-sensei was making it up as he went along, and that's because he was. After all, the card game didn't exist in real life at the time he was writing this arc. That's why you could attack your own Spell Card to create more land for your monsters, or shoot down a floating castle to crush the monsters underneath it, or turn the game into a board game with Labyrinth Wall, or fuse your own monster with a Spell Card to poison one of the heads of Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Granted, some semblance of logic creeps into the game once they get down to the finals, but until then, it's anything goes.

This arc was also my introduction to most of the main cast's Japanese voices, and boy did I experience some serious whiplash. First and foremost? Pegasus. I'll do an in-depth comparison to the English dub later, but Pegasus could actually sound like a menacing villain there. In Japanese, though, he's a complete joke. You know that silly voice people do when they go like, "OoOoOh, I'm A sCaRy GhOoOoOsT"? That's Pegasus's voice for every single line he speaks. You can tell the voice actor was directed to be as bombastic and over-the-top as possible, but his actual performance is just so unconfident that he kind of peters out towards the end of every line. It makes him impossible to take seriously.

Then there's Bakura. Honestly, I burst out laughing when I first heard him speak. He sounds like a girl, almost on par with Yugi in Season 0. Regular Bakura barely even exists as a character, sure, but they use the same voice actor for Dark Bakura, and he just sounds like the snotty third-grader who likes to pick on his crush. Like, really? This is the vengeful spirit of an ancient Egyptian crime lord and evil god? This is the final boss of the entire series? Come now.

Anyway, while the games in this arc are kinda all over the place, it'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the, well, heart in it. The character development Jounouchi goes through may be rudimentary and cliche, but it's still executed well, and it does a surprisingly good job of adding nuance to Kaiba's character by showing the genuine love he feels for his brother, even going so far as to hold his own life hostage to guilt Dark Yugi into throwing the duel that would decide which one gains entrance to Pegasus's castle.

Also, this arc contains a bit of a Duel Monsters rehash of the TTRPG arc with Dark Bakura that rounded out Season 0, complete with regular Bakura proving to be Dark Bakura's undoing.

Domino City Duels (episodes 41-55)

This is a series of basically filler to wind down a bit after the high-stakes Duelist Kingdom arc and set up the plot for the rest of the series.

In these episodes, you get some more casual fun. Highlights include the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc, which introduces new side character Otogi Ryuuji, and the episodes at the end that reveal Dark Yugi to be the Nameless Pharaoh from three thousand years ago (or five thousand in the dub for some reason). As a child, I particularly enjoyed the episode where Yugi sets Dark Yugi up on a date with Anzu (or Tea, as she's known in English) because it let me see a side of the character that I'd never gotten to see before.

Battle City (episodes 56-97 and 122-144)

Having received Obelisk the Tormentor from Ishizu Ishtar, Kaiba holds a tournament with ante rules to lure out the bearer of the other two God Cards. Said bearer swallows the bait hook, line, and sinker, knowing that it's the perfect chance to kill the Nameless Pharaoh as vengeance for the tragic fate of the Gravekeepers.

That bearer, Marik Ishtar, surprised me with his voice acting. More specifically, Dark Marik's voice acting. In English, it's very deep, run through a bunch of filters, and ham-acted. The Japanese didn't run him through any filters; he's just a deeper-voiced regular Marik. But what I love so much about him is his delivery: he always sounds like he's barely stifling laughter at a joke only he's in on, and it makes him such a fun villain.

Battle City is easily the longest arc of the series, and thankfully, it's also the best one. Duel Monsters finally starts to resemble the card game in real life, with rigid and consistent rules, so actual, honest-to-god strategy can finally go on display. Insector Haga actually has a pretty killer gameplan in his deck, for example, and you can see the protagonists' decks and strategies evolve over time. Yugi's deck has a few basic combos at first, but over the course of the arc, you can see him add more support for Dark Magician and Slifer the Sky Dragon. Jounouchi's deck consists of random shitters and gambling cards, but as he wins new cards from his opponents, he incorporates them into his deck and makes them work. Jinzo in particular becomes one of his best cards, mostly because Jinzo is just really fucking good.

But what about Red-Eyes Black Dragon, his signature card ever since he won it from Dinosaur Ryuuzaki in the early episodes of Duelist Kingdom? Well, Battle City opens with him losing it to a Rare Hunter, one of Marik's Ghouls. The Nameless Pharaoh wins it back in short order, but Jounouchi refuses to take it from his friend, launching into a speech that marks the beginning of the reason Jounouchi is such a legendary character among the Japanese fanbase.

You see, Battle City has two main plots running in parallel. The Nameless Pharaoh is fighting Marik for the God Cards and Millennium Rod in order to pursue his own memories and destiny, but Jounouchi is trying to come into his own. He's been flying by the seat of his pants so far, but he sees the Nameless Pharaoh as incredibly close to his ideal of a "true duelist," and he resolves to use the tournament to better himself and come closer to becoming a true duelist himself. Once he's proud of who he is, then he'll challenge the Nameless Pharaoh to a duel in order to win back Red-Eyes fair and square.

So while the Nameless Pharaoh is running around with his plot of self-discovery, Jounouchi is running around with his plot of self-improvement. Indeed, there's even an exchange where someone says, "Hey, these guys around here look like scrubs. You could probably beat 'em and qualify for the finals easily," but Jounouchi responds, "No, I've promised myself I'll only duel people I think are strong. That's the only way I'll get better." Jounouchi's attitude in this arc is genuinely inspiring, especially thanks to the presence of his sister, who needs him to be a larger-than-life role model. This dynamic becomes all the more heartbreaking when the first thing she sees after recovering from her eye surgery ends up being Jounouchi being mind-controlled by Marik in a duel to the death with Yugi.

By the time Jounouchi is dueling Rishid, whom everyone thinks is Marik, in the quarterfinals, incensed at being manipulated to nearly kill his best friend, it's time for his growth over the course of the qualifiers to pay off. In fact, Jounouchi is the one to expose Rishid as a fake; he realizes that the man is dueling with honor and righteousness that one would never expect from a villain willing to resort to abduction and brainwashing. And when he duels the real Marik in the semifinals, he does an incredible job, pulling out all sorts of unorthodox strategies to weather his opponent's onslaught. Had he not passed out from pain before he could declare his final attack, he would have even won. He even goes on to school Kaiba in what dueling is really about. In short, Jounouchi is a goddamn superhero. There's a reason the final shot of the arc is of him squaring off against the Nameless Pharaoh for a duel between equals.

"Don't die, Jounouchi! ... Next time on Yugioh! Duel Monsters: The Death of Jounouchi." Needless to say, this became a meme in Japan.

If anything, Jounouchi's character arc overshadows the ostensible main plot of Battle City, i.e. the Nameless Pharaoh's journey to discover his own identity, which may partially explain what they DID to my king in the dub (though we'll get to that later). Jounouchi Katsuya is a legend, to the point that "Jounouchi" was a popular response on "what do you want to be when you grow up" surveys among Japanese kids in the early 2000's.

Oh, and let's not forget how funny the guy can be, too:

We love our Jounouchi faces.

Now, you might have noticed from the heading up above that this arc is split into two parts. That's because it's interrupted by...

Virtual World (episodes 98-121)

The worst arc.

In between the Battle City quarterfinals and semifinals, the blimp gets hijacked, and its main occupants are thrust into a virtual world run by the Big Five, some vengeful Kaiba Corp executives that Kaiba ousted after Duelist Kingdom, and a mysterious young boy calling himself Noa. The Big Five want to steal the main cast's bodies in order to return to the real world, and Noa wants to see Kaiba and Mokuba suffer for reasons gradually explained over the course of the arc.

Look, I'm not opposed to learning more about Kaiba's backstory. His overthrowing of his adopted father was actually quite interesting, and I don't even object to the existence of a character like Noa on principle. But this was never the time, place, or way to go about telling this story, and the Big Five were a needless inclusion that just got in the way and made the arc drag on way longer than it needed to. They weren't compelling as villains, and there was no adequate explanation for why a bunch of corporate suits could go toe-to-toe with the best duelists in the world. I would've expected them to duel more like Honda and Shizuka did in their duel during this arc.

Yeah, even usual non-duelists actually get a chance in the spotlight during this arc, but it's not as exciting as it should be because the antagonists they fight are just so uninteresting. Once they reach Noa and the plot actually gets going a good fifteen episodes in, this arc starts to hold your attention, but then you realize just how pointless everything up until then had been.

Oh, and this arc introduces Spirit Monsters, including Yata-Garasu, which I'm sure everyone who was around at the time will agree was a very fair and balanced card.

The Seal of Orichalcos (episodes 145-184)

In case you couldn't tell from its god-awful timing, breaking up a tense, high-stakes story, Noa's arc was anime-original, and so is this one. The God Cards get yoinked by a new villain whose lackeys all use a new card: The Seal of Orichalcos. It boosts your monsters' ATK by 500 and lets you have ten of them instead of five. Also, it steals the loser's soul at the end of the duel. Now the Nameless Pharaoh, Kaiba, and Jounouchi have to thwart the (basically) Illuminati's plot to revive an ancient god and restore the lost civilization of Atlantis or something.

Yeah, this arc sucks too. It gives way too much screentime to the aggressively annoying and unfunny minor antagonist duo of Insector Haga and Dinosaur Ryuuzaki, it jumps the shark in terms of occult bullshit, it starts a trend of surprisingly bad artwork that even continues into the next arc, and worst of all, it absolutely assassinates the character of Kujaku Mai.

Mai was introduced in the Duelist Kingdom arc as a will-they-won't-they love interest for Jounouchi. She started off as snooty and standoffish, rolling her eyes and looking down her nose at the power of frienship the main cast espoused, but as she spent more time with Jounouchi, she started opening up more and letting down her guard around them. At the end of Battle City, she said her goodbyes with Jounouchi on an optimistic note, ready to grow as a person until she could feel comfortable joining their clique in earnest.

In this arc, she's so power-hungry that she's willing to stoop to using The Seal of Orichalcos and steal people's souls if it'll help her win duels and overcome the trauma of, uh, being psychologically tortured to near-death by Dark Marik's Shadow Game in the Battle City quarterfinals.

The entire show up until now had built her up to be a bigger person than that. The Mai we'd seen so far wouldn't try to hurt others just because she'd been hurt herself. But that's what she does here, and much ado is made about "Jounouchi just doesn't understand me, but maybe new antagonist Valon does," and it's just a total drag.

Valon himself isn't a bad antagonist, and a few of the other ones are decent, too. Rafael stands out as a compelling character, and Amelda probably would've been interesting if his designated opponent, Kaiba, weren't a victim-blaming dickhead. But the main villain, Dartz, is profoundly boring, and most of this arc's attempts at character moments fell flat. At least we got a few good memes out of it, I guess.

Kaiba Corp Grand Prix (episodes 185-198)

Yet another anime-original filler arc, but this one's short and a nice change of pace. The previous arc took place in America, and the gang doesn't have a ride home. Mokuba shows up and explains to them that Kaiba Corp is hosting another tournament, and he'd be happy to fly them back to Japan once it's done if they show up so the Nameless Pharaoh can duel the winner. Oh, and Jounouchi enters the tournament too because why not.

For the first time in forever, the cast gets to have some low-stakes fun. It's nice to see the gang get to interact with some pleasant, good-natured duelists for once. Not everything has to be about the fate of the world, you know? The duelists in the tournament have some charmingly-themed decks, too, from fairy tales to valkyries. Plus, the trend of strategic gameplay continues, but unlike the previous two filler arcs, I actually cared enough to pay attention to it. It gets so involved, in fact, that there's even a scene where Yugi explains to his friends how Chains resolve.

This section's pretty short because this arc was, too, but I actually didn't mind this one. Now if only the other filler arcs had been decent...

Capsule Monsters (12 episodes)

Capsule Monsters is a bit of a special case not just in Yugioh, but among anime as a whole. This spinoff was produced by the same studio as the rest of the series, but it was commissioned by 4Kids. The Pyramid of Light movie was, too, but that was back-imported into Japan with additional scenes in short order. This, however, is English-exclusive. There's no Japanese dub of it. I have no idea why they did it; it aired in America at this point in the series, which is why I'm talking about it here, so I guess they wanted to pad out the final year of the series?

In this arc, a free trip to India takes a turn for the worse when the gang's plane crashes in a jungle near a pyramid connected to Alexander the Great. As it turns out, this is where Yugi's grandpa went missing during an exploration, and they soon find out why when they get transported to a world that takes after a game called Capsule Monsters. Blah blah blah, and they have to prevent the dark side of Alexander the Great's soul from reviving and resuming his quest to conquer the entire world.

The concept of Capsule Monsters isn't actually new; the mechanics of the game in this arc are based very loosely on a game of the same name from the Season 0 era of the franchise. You might suspect that this arc was a ploy to sell new toys, like how they made and sold an actual Dungeon Dice Monsters game based on the few episodes where it showed up earlier in the series, but as far as I'm aware, they never actually made a Capsule Monsters game.

And this arc is fun enough, I guess. It's not great, but it's no Noa or Orichalcos either. Was it necessary? God no. But I could think of worse ways to spend my time. Now, let's get back to the main plot, shall we?

Millennium World (episodes 199-224)

Millennium World, my beloved!

In this arc, heeding the words of the Ishtars from the end of Battle City, the gang decides to visit the Nameless Pharaoh's tomb in Egypt so they can finally unlock the mysteries of his lost memories. But an unwelcome visitor sneaks into the world of the Nameless Pharaoh's memories: the spirit of the Millennium Ring. Possessing Thief King Bakura just as the Nameless Pharaoh possesses his past self, he's determined to reenact his evil plot from three thousand years ago - and succeed this time.

This arc focuses less on duels (there's only three of them, and one is very short) and more on worldbuilding and storytelling. The intrigue of the Pharaoh's court, the different shapes of the different priests' determination to serve their king, the tragic tale of Kaiba's ancestor and Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the noble yet heartbreaking origin story of Dark Magician, the bloody history of the Millennium Items, everything about this arc is absolutely beautiful. Okay, maybe not Bobasa. Almost everything!

Even once the Nameless Pharaoh reclaims his name and vanquishes his age-old nemesis once and for all, there's still one last thing for him to do: lose. In order for him to open the door to the afterlife and depart into his eternal rest, Yugi needs to face him in a ceremonial battle and win. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. There could be no better way to round out this series than Yugi proving to everyone, including himself, that he's grown into his own person and can take care of himself without someone to watch over and protect him.

Takahashi-sensei had to have had this arc planned out from a very early stage, at least in broad strokes. It's just too expertly-crafted for me to believe otherwise. The way the priests endear themselves to the viewer in such a short time, the emotional conflict between wanting to let the Pharaoh pass on and not wanting to say goodbye to such a dear friend... This is one of the best final arcs I've seen of any series.

And as a side note, this arc bears the distinction of being the only one to have an OP and ED that don't suck big, sweaty monkey balls.

The 4Kids dub

Cards

The original Yugioh manga, even with its inital dark themes, ran in Weekly Shonen Jump, a magazine primarily targed towards elementary school children, and the Duel Monsters anime was made even more child-friendly. But in order to distribute it to a Western audience, 4Kids Entertainment decided it needed to be sterilized even further. In the process of localizing it, they made a number of substantial changes to it - not just in the script or simple redrawing, but even in scene composition and editing.

One very obvious visual change is the presentation of the cards: while the Japanese version showed the cards as they exist in real life, the English version replaces the card text with just the card's Attribute and stats (in the case of Monster Cards), even removing the card's name. According to the Yugioh wikia, this was to get around FCC regulations about advertising on TV, which... sure? They also changed card artwork to match how it is in the English version of the card game, which mostly consisted of removing any five- or six-pointed star shapes. Though they also changed the Polymerization card artwork to something I don't think it's ever had in the real-life card game.

Interestingly, they also fixed some minor errors. The Japanese version of the Duelist Kingdom arc incorrectly portrayed Flame Swordsman as a Normal Monster, but the English version colors him like the Fusion Monster he really is. He still gets used like a Normal Monster in the gameplay, though, and he's still colored like a Normal Monster in some scenes.

And I'm not sure how much of this was 4Kids and how much was the localization team for the card game, but a lot of card names got tamed. They avoided the word "black" quite a bit, most famously turning Black Magician and Black Magician Girl into Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl. There were some exceptions, like Magician of Black Chaos and Black Luster Soldier, but even cards like Black Hole became, well, Dark Hole. Other words they avoided include "angel," "god," "holy," "demon," "devil," and "death."

Nudity

They also covered up any significant nudity in the card artwork, and this extended to the cards' holograms, too. This, for example, is the original Japanese appearance of Harpie Lady:

You might accuse me of using this as an excuse to post anime tiddy.

In the English version, those straps are filled out into something that looks more like a one-piece swimsuit. Even when Mai has them cover up a bit with the Equip Spell Cyber Shield (or Cyber Bondage in Japanese, to keep with the dominatrix theme), they still remove the nipple spikes.

They also cover up the fairy from the Mystical Refpanel card the one time she appears, giving her a white gown instead of the tasteful nudity from the Japanese version:

You also get a clear shot of her butt from behind a few seconds after this.

They didn't, however, censor Dark Magician Girl, so she got to trigger little boys' sexual awakenings around the world.

They also rewrote the few references in the script to the female body. Perhaps the most memorable one is from when they were on the ferry to Duelist Kingdom: Anzu complains about needing to go to the bathroom, and when Honda jokes that she should just pee off the edge of the ship, she angrily retorts that she's not a guy. In the dub, Tea complains about being cold, and Tristan's response is that the sun would be up in a few hours, though his delivery makes it hard to parse as a response to what Tea said. It's kinda baffling why they did this rewrite. Maybe they didn't want little boys asking their parents to explain the joke?

Later, in the Virtual World arc, Honda gets his mind trapped in a robot monkey body, and Shizuka carries him around everywhere. In the Japanese, there's a running gag where he alternates between anxiety at his plight and joy at being pressed up against her breasts. The English rewrote that latter part to joy about being held in her arms and excited speculation that it means she likes him.

Interestingly, though, they kept the Duelist Kingdom scene of Tea naked in the makeshift shower:

But they did cut the line where Mai warns the boys not to peek at her.

In my opinion, y'all're being a bunch of Puritan-ass prudes. Belly buttons are nice, and that ain't nothin' anybody oughta be ashamed of.

Weapons, violence, and realistic danger

Anyone remember this shit?

A perfectly normal way to threaten someone.

The 4Kids dub got rid of any and all guns, knives, and weapons in general, as well as scenes of violence between the human characters. The scene where Pegasus's goons have Kaiba surrounded with guns, and he throws cards to jam the hammers and overpower them like a badass? Cut. The scene of Honda literally smacking some sense into Jounouchi when he's about to buckle under the pressure in Battle City? Pruned. Honda fistfighting Marik's goons? Trimmed. A young Rishid getting whipped by his adopted father, followed by Dark Marik killing said father with the Millennium Rod? Snapped. Thief King Bakura grabbing Honda by the neck? SNIP!

They also did their best to get rid of any realistic peril the characters might find themselves in. While Pandora's duel threatened to have the loser's ankles severed with buzzsaws, Arkana's buzzsaws were coated in special magic that would send you to the Shadow Realm. Mask of Light and Mask of Darkness threatened to have their duel's losers plunge through the high-rise's skylight to their deaths, but Lumis and Umbra's skylight had a portal to the Shadow Realm below the glass. When Mai lost her Shadow Game with Dark Marik, her punishment was to fall into a coma and gradually lose her memories as she died, but in English... Something something Shadow Realm.

They talk about the Shadow Realm plenty in the Japanese, too, but nowhere near to the extent they do in English. The Japanese isn't shy about putting life-and-death stakes in duels, but in English, you'd be hard-pressed to hear them say the words "die" or "death" outside of an idiom. Even in Duelist Kingdom, when Kaiba stood on the edge of the castle to cow Dark Yugi into throwing the duel, rather than have him threaten to throw himself off if he lost, the dub implied that the force from Dark Yugi's attack might blow him over the edge.

This even extended to stuff that was downright tangential. In Anzu's second and last duel of the series, against one of the Big Five, the gimmick is that the more Life Points either player loses, the more they're frozen in ice. Anzu's feet are frozen already, and she's shivering too much to draw her next card. At this point, Dark Magician Girl helps steady her hand. But in the dub, DMG's "let me help you" line is changed to something like "We can talk to each other telepathically, ain't that wacky?"

Admittedly, there were some moments they just couldn't do anything about. Between Duelist Kingdom and Battle City, Bandit Keith steals Yugi's Millennium Puzzle and bolts it to a duel arena in a warehouse. When the warehouse later catches fire, Yugi refuses to escape until he frees the Puzzle, and Jounouchi and Honda have to help him get it loose. And most famously, Yugi's duel at the docks with the mind-controlled Jounouchi in Battle City, where only the winner can unchain himself from an anchor that will plunge into the ocean at the duel's end, was entirely untouched.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the point was. To a kid, "going to the Shadow Realm" and dying are equally abstract and difficult to conceptualize. Besides, when characters lose Shadow Games to Dark Marik and go into comas, it's clear enough that their physical health is in serious danger. What were they trying to accomplish by obfuscating the consequences?

Voices

Yugioh is a rare breed among anime in that the dub cast doesn't abjectly suck. Heck, some characters, most notably Pegasus and Bakura, are unequivocal improvements. Most of the rest of the cast plays their roles well, even if those roles are a bit more one-note than the Japanese (though we'll get to that later). Best of all, nobody's afraid to pile on the ham. Though, uh, they fumbled Tristan rather hard at first. In the first ten episodes, he sounds like Barney the dinosaur, but they got a new voice for him as of episode 11, presumably because they realized he was more than just a buttmonkey.

But there are some interesting decisions in the voicing that I'd like to call attention to. The most obvious is the voice of Jounouchi, now known in the dub as Joey Wheeler. They gave him an exaggerated Brooklyn accent, which is fine in and of itself, but they seem to make use of it in order to play up his comedic side and take the edge off the more serious aspects of his character. Fortunately, it's not like they do anything to actually jeopardize the heart of his character, right? Right? Foreshadowing is a literary device in whi

Next up is the Nameless Pharaoh. I can't tell if he uses the same voice actor as Yugi - if so, god damn does he have range - but I think it's interesting that they went with such a deep voice for him. In the Japanese, he more or less sounds the same as Yugi, just much sharper and more intense. Couple that with his wild, bad-boy speech patterns, and he comes off as an exciting, dependable friend. In English, the Nameless Pharaoh's deep voice and high-register, measured diction paint him as mysterious and wise beyond his years. He comes off as almost paternal. Admittedly, that could be my impressions from when I watched the dub as a kid talking, but I still think there's at least some substance to what I'm saying.

This is important because it colors your perception of his relationships with the rest of the cast over the course of the series. Such as, I dunno, the big farewell scene in the final episode? In English, they're saying goodbye to a larger-than-life god whose presence they'd been blessed with. In Japanese, they're saying goodbye to a dear companion they'd gone through thick and thin with. Is this change good? Bad? Hell if I know. But I at least know it feels different, and I'm not sure how to digest it.

Another change is that in the Japanese, whenever the Nameless Pharaoh is thinking, he does so in his own voice, but in English, he does so in Yugi's, the only exceptions being times when their souls are separated. Why did they do this? Beats me.

The script

In fact, there's a lot of "why did they do this" changes in the dub. In the Japanese, Yugi's magical girl transformation sequence plays maybe once or twice ever, but in the dub, it plays damn near every time he trades places with the Nameless Pharaoh.

But there's no greater source of baffling changes than the script. First and foremost: the additions. You see, the dub abhors silence. Whenever the characters have their back to the camera, or it's a pan over a scenery shot, or any other moment where they don't have to be accountable to lip flaps, you can bet they'll have someone gabbing about something. There's no better illustrator of this than the money shot of the final episode. In the Japanese, the main cast is gathered outside the tomb, basking in the moment and swallowing the reality of the feat they've just accomplished. Honda murmurs, "He's really gone," Jounouchi replies, "Yeah," the music swells, and roll credits.

In English, Tristan says, "So this is the end? Feels weird," Joey replies, "Yeah," and then Kaiba cuts in with, "What were you geeks expecting?" Joey says, "Fireworks? Sappy music? Something. At least make one of your little wrap-up speeches, Yug." Yugi obliges with, "Well, sometimes the end of one adventure is just the beginning of another!" And Joey closes the series off with, "Yeah. Much better."

The dub writers just couldn't bear to give their viewers time to think. In fact, that might be part of why there's so many silly one-liners across the series. Granted, many of them are genuinely funny, and I'd even say they're the dub's greatest strength, but having now seen the Japanese, I have no choice but to conclude that they're a double-edged sword. Even little kids can understand when a situation is serious, you know? No need to fill their ears with vapid nonsense.

Then there's another consistent thread that seems to govern the dub's writing: it tends to flatten a lot of ancillary characterization or character development and instead rewrite lines to reinforce the main supernatural plot. Allow me to now list a few examples that remained fresh in my memory:

• The recurring "something you can show, but can't see" theme is mostly cut, most notably in Dark Yugi's duel with Mai in the Duelist Kingdom semifinals. The conflict in that duel is rewritten to be about Yugi being unwilling to call upon Dark Yugi's assistance because of how he was willing to put Kaiba's life in danger the previous day... even though he's transformed into Dark Yugi at that very moment?
• In episode 50, Yugi replaces the string the Puzzle hangs on with a chain, and Dark Yugi compliments him on the new look, suggests he go for silver bangles next, and even adds, "You should ask Anzu out. The way I see it, she's totally into you." In the dub, Dark Yugi approves of the added security, stating that they need to keep the Puzzle safe because it connects their souls.
• In episode 53, Yugi sets Dark Yugi up on a date with Anzu, telling her that Dark Yugi has been in a funk and unwilling to open up about it, and maybe spending time with Anzu would cheer him up. In the dub, Yugi says Dark Yugi is feeling insecure about not knowing his own identity, so he wants Tea to help him investigate. Which, uh, why would she of all people be the right person for the job? This topic does come up during the episode in the Japanese too, but organically during the date. The dub also cuts out a short montage of Anzu and Dark Yugi doing stereotypical date activities like listening to samples in a CD shop, walking through the park, and catching a movie.
• Marik's motivations in Battle City are completely rewritten. While he sought bloody vengeance against the Nameless Pharaoh in the Japanese, English Marik wants to steal the Millennium Puzzle and use the Nameless Pharaoh's power to rule the world. He's depicted as much more indiscriminate in spreading evil.
• In the final episode, when Yugi breaks down in tears after winning the duel, the Pharaoh consoles him with affirmations of how much they've both grown since meeting each other, rounding out on "You're Mutou Yugi, and there's nobody else like you in the whole world." In the dub, he talks about how they've saved the world and stopped supernatural threats.
• The "heart of the cards" is only ever mentioned a handful of times in the Duelist Kingdom arc in Japanese, but it recurs constantly throughout the entire dub. Similarly, characters in the dub talk about "destiny" almost nonstop.
• Multiple instances of Kaiba being genuinely surprised and questioning his assumptions, be it about occult wackiness or Jounouchi's skill as a duelist, are replaced by a cynical snort and pithy denial. The dub also has him regard Yugi's friends with derision, often calling them geeks or dweebs, whereas he was entirely indifferent to them in Japanese. And just in general, he's a lot less thoughtful.
• Most hints of romantic feelings between characters are downplayed or removed, though they mostly didn't touch the ones that would've been inappropriate relationships, such as Rebecca (age 9) calling Yugi (age 16) her boyfriend and kissing him on the cheek, or Valon commenting on Mai (grown adult) feeling love for Jounouchi (age 16).
• And then there's - uh-oh. Here it comes. I can't stop it! It's time for-

The Joey rant

So do y'all remember what I said about Jounouchi way up in my discussion of the Battle City arc? How his story in that arc is all about personal growth, outlined in that speech he gives the Nameless Pharaoh at the beginning? It's a great scene, and the writers knew it, 'cause they flash back to it a million times. In fact, lemme translate it here for you:

"If I take that card from you right now, this easily, I feel like it'll set me back from this ideal I'm chasing of a 'true duelist.' Yugi, you're the closest person I know to what I consider a true duelist. When I dueled you at Duelist Kingdom, I felt like I'd caught up to you in some way. But I was just being conceited. Just now, you won fair and square against a cheater without compromising your principles. I learned a lot from that. You have this pride as a duelist that I've never had. Yes, Red-Eyes is one-of-a-kind for me. He's a partner I've always had by my side. But that's why I can't take him from you now. He wouldn't let me get away with it, the way I am now. So you hold onto him for a while... I want to become a true duelist. No, not 'want.' I will become a true duelist during Battle City. Yugi, once I win my way up and qualify as a true duelist, I want you to duel me again."

And heeeeeeere's what Joey Wheeler says!

"Nah, Yug. You hold onto it. It isn't mine to take, pal. You won it fair and square. Besides, the Rare Hunters are collecting tons of rare cards! Their decks are totally souped up, so I know that they're gonna be tough to beat, even for you! One day, you'll need all the powerful monsters you can get. Plus, you can think of me whenever you play my Red-Eyes! It's the least I could do to repay you. See, during the Duelist Kingdom tournament, you taught me rules, killer strategies, and everything else that I needed to know to help me get to the finals. I couldn't've done it without your help. You always have my back, so it's time I helped you for a change. That's why I want you to keep my Red-Eyes Black Dragon! I know it's gonna come in handy for you sometime. Besides, this means that a part of me will be a part of your deck. It's kinda cool, knowing that I'm helping you save the world... We're a team! Together, we won't let any duelist beat us. It's true! We'll whoop this Marik creep and his Rare Hunter goon squad so hard, they won't know what hit 'em! They'll be sorry they ever decided to mess with us!"

Fun fact: Jounouchi/Joey never goes on to duel a single Rare Hunter, and Red-Eyes only ever sees use in this arc in Yugi's duel against Jounouchi/Joey, in the hopes of breaking Marik's brainwashing. Also, Jounouchi/Joey's duel against Dark Marik is specifically to help Mai, not the Nameless Pharaoh.

Even as a kid, this felt kinda weird to me, since Joey promised to help in a way that he ultimately never did. And now that I've seen the original, I know why! It's because they killed the most moving character arc in the entire damn franchise just to play up the main plot even more than they already were!

This shit right here is so egregious that I daresay it singlehandedly cancels out all the good otherwise done in the dub. And they keep doubling down on it, rewriting lots of dialogue throughout Battle City to build up Marik as a villain, even down to the scene where the Nameless Pharaoh is grieving Jounouchi's potential death. In Japanese, he laments being unable to make good on his promise to rematch his friend and begins to doubt himself, questioning whether his selfish quest of self-discovery is creating unneeded victims. Jounouchi's spirit shows up next to him and asks, "What does it mean to be a true duelist?" Immediately afterward, the Millennium Necklace in the Nameless Pharaoh's pocket glows and shows him a vision of the future in which the two of them are facing each other for the duel they'd promised to have. In English, he rages at Marik's psychopathy and insanity for a while, concluding with, "Marik's path of destruction is so unpredictable! Argh, what's next? It's so unclear..." And Joey's spirit's line? "It doesn't have to be. Just check your pocket."

Ever since I decided to write this post, I've been struggling to find the words for how this makes me feel, and I still can't. I'm not alone in thinking this was a disastrous change, right? I liked Joey well enough as a kid, but I never knew how much more I could've loved him if 4Kids had just let me. But no - that's Jounouchi. Joey is a bumbling goofball with a funny accent. God, I'm never gonna be able to hear that "Rare Hunter goon squad" line the same way again...

Deep breaths, Kazoo

So what's the final verdict on the original Yugioh series? Despite the, uh, spiciness at the end there, I think it's legendary, even in English. There's just so much to love about it, and it's inspired me to watch the rest of the Yugioh franchise, too. May Jounouchi have mercy on my soul.

Also, I suck at conclusions, but I feel like I owe you a punchline for everything you just read, so here you go:

Yes, that's a Sky Striker deck on the right. I am in great pain; please help me.