The Odd 4Kids Dub of YuGiOh

I think that despite the constant censorship, at least you can say the voice cast did their best with what they were given. We all know how iconic dub Kaiba is.

Shadow realm is a great euphemism, honestly. And it’s become a fairly iconic meme, too. I’ve heard UFC fighters and commentators refer to knockouts as being “sent to the shadow realm.”

7:42 I tend to watch the dub just for gems like these "Joey I don't think we should cook the candy bars" "Back up I know what I'm doing"

Honestly, it's so wild to me that the localization team thought that an endless dark abyss where you're mentally tortured for eternity was more comforting than Death(TM)

To be fair, the Shadow Realm was the best change they made. Like I knew about death as a kid it wasn't a scary thing to me. But the fucking Shadow Realm that shit was terrifying cause it felt like a nightmare place that was magical.

The story of how Takahashi dove into the river to save lives was symbolic of how Joey jumps in the river to retrieve yugis puzzle. Both are acts of courage as 1 risks their own well being for the sake of others

I love how their solution to death being in a kid's show was to replace Dying with being sent to basically Hell Like, if someone dies, a kid growing up in the US(a majority Catholic and/or Christian country) would more than likely tell themselves "they went to Heaven" to soften the impact of a character or person dying. But the Shadow Realm? A dimension where you are tortured and trapped for all eternity? There's no room for "they went to Heaven" that's just straight up "You go to Hell, the end."

I think what should've been mentioned is that the shadow realm itself is canon and in the manga. But it only applies to very few duels where owners of millenium items initiate a shadow game betting their souls. 4kids just took that concept and applied it to basicly every situation where lifes are on the line, regardless if millenium powers are being used or not.

6:49 The removal of all text from Duel Monsters cards was actually not a change mandated by 4Kids, it was one by the FCC. After the era of 80s toy commercial cartoons, a lot more restrictions were placed on what could and couldn't be shown in children's programming. One of the biggest rules was that if your show was promoting a toy line or merchandise line, you could not have the actual toy appear in the show because that would fully push it into commercial territory. And given that Yu-Gi-Oh is a show about card games that is also trying to sell you the real world equivalent of said card game, that was a problem so they just covered up all the text so there was some level of obfuscation in play. This is also why if you watch any of the movies, the cards have full english text since film has no such regulations. It was also a general policy of 4Kids to remove most Japanese text from shows and NOT translate it to english so that it was easier to sell the shows to non-English, non-Japanese speaking foreign markets. I personally kind of like the no-text look of the cards, it makes them feel more mysterious and mystical while also making all the absurd Calvinball played with the game in Duelist Kingdom a little more plausible.

Even though I wouldn't say I like it when localizations change elements of an anime, I was fond of the idea of the Shadow Realm. It made it feel like a genuine element of the Yu-gi-oh world, even if it was a stand-in for death.

"Don't move or we'll shoot you with our invisible guns." - YGOTAS

By far the weirdest censorship was they decision to remove Yugi's mom. Genuinely confused on why they did that.

I wonder how much fun the Rare hunters had with beating up their own boss in that scene 😂

I love all of Yugioh. The cards, the manga, the anime, the movies, and yes, even the dub. I don’t care if it’s meant to sell me something. It’s something I never knew I absolutely needed!

I haven't seen the Japanese version of YuGiOh in a while but I think the dub and the original are special in their own ways. I will say I prefer the dub Kaiba because he's so hilariously self aware and over the top in being a greedy company president, and his casual roasting of nearly everyone is also a gem.

How ironic. Death is too dark, but a realm of perpetual torture is fine.

I honestly dug the idea of the Shadow Realm. People dying didn't feel like as big a deal as the concept of an unexplainable world that in my mind sounded like a concept of Hell that you couldn't get out of

For me, if I rewatch Yugioh DM it has to be the dub. Yeah it's cheezy, kinda dumb, and it changes a lot, but it's little things like Joey's Brooklyn accent, the jokes that they slid into the dub, hearing Dan Green summoning the Dark Magician, and the fact that the 4 Kids voice cast are all really cool and friendly people who actually go to big events to do in character duels that mix with my nostalgia and make me need to watch the dub. Plus that opening is amazing, the original is great too, but the english op for DM is just this mix of foreboding, magical, and mysterious that hooks you in.

I appreciate them all. But the 4Kids version will always be my favorite. It's the version that got my nephew and I into the card game way back then. Wonderful memories.

The manga is definitely my favorite form of Yu-Gi-Oh. It was the way the I experienced the final arc of the series for the first time, and I was appalled at how much the anime changed from it. Not to mention that Takahashi's art runs circles around the anime most of the time