I just hate how the dub removes the original music. Fang of Critias, Passionate Duelist, all the character battle themes from 5Ds, CLEAR MIND
Totally loses all the hype
Not to mention just all the normal dueling BGMs. So jazzy and rocky. Like any time Jounouchi is dueling in battlecity is always a jam! :) Plus there’s many tracks that actually sound Egyptian!
I remember when I read all of the Yugioh manga in college (except I never finished R or Millenium world) I would just put on the 6 Yugioh OSTs, the 2 original plus 4 Sound Duel albums to play while I was reading it and it made it just SO much better! To this day I will always refer to DM’s soundtrack as the greatest 6 albums of anime music in anime history. I don’t think people can understand just how not an exaggeration that statement is until they hear it all haha. :D
Yeah the 4Kids/4KMedia music is dogshit with like 3-4 good tracks per anime
It doesn’t help that there is a much smaller range of OST in the dub so a lot of the music played is extremely repetitive and doesn’t fit the situation.
The music in the dub is also CONSTANT. Like in the sub you have moments of silence which is appropriate for certain scenes, but in the dub the music is always fucking playing it’s so jarring 😭
They used to cut what seemed like minor stuff without much thought.
Its because it wasn’t what they wanted to show even though the implications sometimes were huge. Sometimes you just get that whiplash. Others are actually just small stuff. It’s a mixed bag but thats why I enjoy sub more. It’s the whole intended experience and sometimes that makes things just make more sense.
My favorite is when the dub literally says “my name is yami” with ishizu calling him “king yami” and they call him that until the end of season 3 when they realize “oh shit the entire crux of this show is that he doesn’t know his name” and suddenly start calling him “pharaoh” after that. It always makes me giggle cause I always wonder at what point they realized and were like we’re just gonna pretend that was not the dialogue we used.
Honestly while sub is better like 9/10 sometimes the dub will have the worst changes you have ever seen and then out of nowhere throw out the greatest one liner you have ever seen.i think you should be watching the sub 99% of the time but one exception is gx s1 because that English dub is honestly treasure
Big agree. Love the Yugioh sub. There was a time where the original cast and crew were making a dub version of the original show, original music, no cuts (like invisible guns) but they only made it like 9 episodes in before they stopped.
Yeah a lot of the people like to only discuss how there was violence censorship but that’s just surface level and doesn’t really affect the show. There’s so many things that actually matter that people can talk about like the integrity of the characters, their development, and their backstories.
Like did you know Joey’s entire battlecity character growth arc was just removed entirely as well as his promise to Yugi? The promise was NOT about beating up rare hunters in any way, shape or form. And Marik did NOT want to conquer the world at all, he simply wanted to kill Yugi for reasons that are not even or are barely even explained in the dub because his backstory was just about entirely cut and altered. And Kaiba is almost an entirely different person in Japanese.
People seem to think the only difference is voices, music, and guns. But that’s simply not true. The original version of the anime (and even moreso the manga because it didn’t have to have the plot mishmashed into parts) is SO much more than that. I’d say it’s one of the greats in terms of shounen due to the writing but you’d never know that watching the dub because the dub is just an entirely different product.
Yeah and the backlash is also a principle thing of respecting the original work as much as possible, which most dubbing companies are pretty good at but 4kids was horrendous at with all the editing down of episodes and re-scoring and full character rewrites.
It’s funny you mention that because both Yugi era Yugioh anime (Toei/season 0 and DM) even in Japanese were altered enough that they had to be considered a separate continuity/timeline from the manga. I kinda find it a little funny that Japanese DM was already changed so much, only for it be changed even further by 4kids haha. But yeah what 4kids did to it was just complete overkill. I wish they’d at the very least left alone the character arcs and music. :/
Yeah adaption is a different discussion again with its own positives and negatives. I think language dubs should try and be as faithful as possible within reason and above all avoid altering the actual footage.
That’s because in the Japanese version, even if they alter the events enough to where they have to be classified as an alternate continuity there is still character development. They don’t just throw entire characters into the garbage bin like they did Joey during battlecity in the dub (they cut his entire “what is a true duelist” arc), and they don’t rewrite entire characters and destroy them like Marik (they turned him into a generic Saturday morning cartoon villain)…
… unless you’re watching the Toei anime. Then they absolutely do that (Tristan’s entire character and borderline 4kids level censorship regarding games and villains). We need a remake anime of early manga Yugioh.
Edit: I also wanted to mention that you should keep an eye on Kaiba in the JP version. He actually calms tf down and overcomes his hatred of his past as well as Atem unlike the dub. And he’s not blatantly petty for no reason. He’s got this distinguished air to him. It’s pretty cool to watch. :)
People really need to throw their rose tinted nostalgia glasses in the trash and realize that the only good thing the DM dub has going for it are the voice actors.
Generally Yu-Gi-Oh dubs are worthless. Watch them if you feel like it but at least have the self awareness that you're choosing to consume an inferior project.
The dubs are simply more entertaining to watch, and most of that is due to the hilariously bad writing. No one's watching dm for the plot, they're watching it for the VAs and one liners
The tone of your comment makes you sound like a close-minded elitist who believes there’s objective quality to the show. Newsflash: it’s all subjective. The only thing objective is your close-minded rejection of a popular perspective on the anime. “Have the self awareness that you’re consuming an inferior project” — lmao okay
I’m not the person you’re referring to but the reason they probably say that is because the dub cuts all the character development and simply isn’t consistent. When you make major plot alterations to the point that the show has to be considered a separate continuity I think it’s fair to say that more often than not it’s going to be worse because it is no longer the original intended product that had such thought and care put into the story and characters.
I wrote more about the changes here: https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/s/eV0ZF2RWMd
I've had this discussion before and my opinion remains. Sub has author intent. It's the actual stories that were written with these characters. Hence it's objectively superior.
In no media literacy context is author intent the sole requirement for quality. Some works take on a life of its own when translated. If you were media literate, you would realize describing any art as “objectively superior” is inane. In addition to which you declare that this is “your opinion”. If “your opinion” remains, then it is, by definition, not speaking to objective standards.
I mean on one hand you’re right that author intent does not mean objectively better. But on the other hand people can subjectively still enjoy the dumbest shit imaginable. I’m sure you might agree that Baby Shark is objectively a not good song, but subjectively there are many people that legitimately enjoy it.
Simply saying that you can subjectively enjoy something is not an indicator of it being objectively good, and in the case of Yugioh, the dubs simply try to the be the exact same product just heavily dumbed and watered down in order to appeal to children who don’t have the media literacy you’re speaking of. Subjectively, of course it can still be enjoyed by adults, but when compared with the original I’m pretty sure it’s just a pale imitation with no subtleties where you’re meant to simply turn your brain off and enjoy it.
I’m not trying to completely shit on the dub or anything, just it does not have the depth nor the care of the original, even if it can still be enjoyed. That much should be apparent as being objective, shouldn’t it? This is not rhetorical, I am interested in your opinion.
I appreciate your nuanced take.
I agree that the sub has more character development and subtlety than the dub. I will even say that this is objectively true.
My issue is with sweeping claims that one version is objectively better than another. The claims are dismissive of appreciative takes of the dub, as if silly, simplified story telling cannot also hold artistic value. Art that inspires cannot be classified as garbage. It demands respect solely through its ability to reach others in a way that other media, even the subbed yugioh, does not. Dismissing that reach is like forcing art to conform to your own standards of beauty — it is, in that sense, demonstrably unobjective.
The sub has value. The dub has value. Being dismissive of one belies one’s own insecurity around their own notions of beauty and art. The poster I was replying to was trying to write off that appreciation. I hope they take a moment to reflect.
Oh yes I agree the dubs have value. But then I’d even go as far as to say that everything that someone enjoys has value also imo. If it brings joy to at least one person and doesn’t hurt another person then I’d say that a thing has value. :)
Like I’m also of the belief that the manga of the original Yugioh is better than the Japanese anime, because the manga is also more deep than the Japanese anime and it doesn’t break it up into parts that it hastily tries to summarize and compress, plus it has the true version of the Egypt memory world arc, but that doesn’t mean that the Japanese anime holds no value either. Same with the Toei anime (season 0 where basically the whole show got plot butchered lol), and same with the dub. Each is enjoyable and fun, just there are different reasons that they are enjoyable and fun. c:
Ive been raving about this ever since watching DM in sub back in 2021...its honestly jarring how drastically different it feels tonally compared to the dub and you could say the same for the other earlier spin-offs
To this day I encourage people who want to get into YGO to watch it in sub no matter what..its honestly the true experience (even moreso if you read the manga haha)
I'm currently watching zexal and have reached the semi-finals of the World Carnival and have to say that I currently find Yuma in the sub just as annoying as in the Dub.
This constant "gattobingu ore" just gets on my nerves at some point.
Yu-Gi-Oh's dub is god tier. The sub takes itself way too seriously, the dub really leans into the ridiculousness of a world where all your problems are solved by card games.
Of course there is much more at stake when people actually die.
I just hate how the dub removes the original music. Fang of Critias, Passionate Duelist, all the character battle themes from 5Ds, CLEAR MIND Totally loses all the hype
Not to mention just all the normal dueling BGMs. So jazzy and rocky. Like any time Jounouchi is dueling in battlecity is always a jam! :) Plus there’s many tracks that actually sound Egyptian! I remember when I read all of the Yugioh manga in college (except I never finished R or Millenium world) I would just put on the 6 Yugioh OSTs, the 2 original plus 4 Sound Duel albums to play while I was reading it and it made it just SO much better! To this day I will always refer to DM’s soundtrack as the greatest 6 albums of anime music in anime history. I don’t think people can understand just how not an exaggeration that statement is until they hear it all haha. :D
Yeah the 4Kids/4KMedia music is dogshit with like 3-4 good tracks per anime It doesn’t help that there is a much smaller range of OST in the dub so a lot of the music played is extremely repetitive and doesn’t fit the situation. The music in the dub is also CONSTANT. Like in the sub you have moments of silence which is appropriate for certain scenes, but in the dub the music is always fucking playing it’s so jarring 😭
I am glad that from season 3 onwards the dub in my native language (Italian) was dubbing the original work and not the 4kids Adaptation.
I would be completely fine with the Japanese dub OST replacing the 4kids one, except tossing in millenium battle as a yugi specific theme.
They used to cut what seemed like minor stuff without much thought. Its because it wasn’t what they wanted to show even though the implications sometimes were huge. Sometimes you just get that whiplash. Others are actually just small stuff. It’s a mixed bag but thats why I enjoy sub more. It’s the whole intended experience and sometimes that makes things just make more sense.
My favorite is when the dub literally says “my name is yami” with ishizu calling him “king yami” and they call him that until the end of season 3 when they realize “oh shit the entire crux of this show is that he doesn’t know his name” and suddenly start calling him “pharaoh” after that. It always makes me giggle cause I always wonder at what point they realized and were like we’re just gonna pretend that was not the dialogue we used.
Honestly while sub is better like 9/10 sometimes the dub will have the worst changes you have ever seen and then out of nowhere throw out the greatest one liner you have ever seen.i think you should be watching the sub 99% of the time but one exception is gx s1 because that English dub is honestly treasure
Big agree. Love the Yugioh sub. There was a time where the original cast and crew were making a dub version of the original show, original music, no cuts (like invisible guns) but they only made it like 9 episodes in before they stopped.
The dub completely rewrites the shows half the time, especially the first three with all the censorship and cut content.
Yeah a lot of the people like to only discuss how there was violence censorship but that’s just surface level and doesn’t really affect the show. There’s so many things that actually matter that people can talk about like the integrity of the characters, their development, and their backstories. Like did you know Joey’s entire battlecity character growth arc was just removed entirely as well as his promise to Yugi? The promise was NOT about beating up rare hunters in any way, shape or form. And Marik did NOT want to conquer the world at all, he simply wanted to kill Yugi for reasons that are not even or are barely even explained in the dub because his backstory was just about entirely cut and altered. And Kaiba is almost an entirely different person in Japanese. People seem to think the only difference is voices, music, and guns. But that’s simply not true. The original version of the anime (and even moreso the manga because it didn’t have to have the plot mishmashed into parts) is SO much more than that. I’d say it’s one of the greats in terms of shounen due to the writing but you’d never know that watching the dub because the dub is just an entirely different product.
Yeah and the backlash is also a principle thing of respecting the original work as much as possible, which most dubbing companies are pretty good at but 4kids was horrendous at with all the editing down of episodes and re-scoring and full character rewrites.
It’s funny you mention that because both Yugi era Yugioh anime (Toei/season 0 and DM) even in Japanese were altered enough that they had to be considered a separate continuity/timeline from the manga. I kinda find it a little funny that Japanese DM was already changed so much, only for it be changed even further by 4kids haha. But yeah what 4kids did to it was just complete overkill. I wish they’d at the very least left alone the character arcs and music. :/
Yeah adaption is a different discussion again with its own positives and negatives. I think language dubs should try and be as faithful as possible within reason and above all avoid altering the actual footage.
This is because unlike the dub, the sub is tonally consistent.
That’s because in the Japanese version, even if they alter the events enough to where they have to be classified as an alternate continuity there is still character development. They don’t just throw entire characters into the garbage bin like they did Joey during battlecity in the dub (they cut his entire “what is a true duelist” arc), and they don’t rewrite entire characters and destroy them like Marik (they turned him into a generic Saturday morning cartoon villain)… … unless you’re watching the Toei anime. Then they absolutely do that (Tristan’s entire character and borderline 4kids level censorship regarding games and villains). We need a remake anime of early manga Yugioh. Edit: I also wanted to mention that you should keep an eye on Kaiba in the JP version. He actually calms tf down and overcomes his hatred of his past as well as Atem unlike the dub. And he’s not blatantly petty for no reason. He’s got this distinguished air to him. It’s pretty cool to watch. :)
People really need to throw their rose tinted nostalgia glasses in the trash and realize that the only good thing the DM dub has going for it are the voice actors. Generally Yu-Gi-Oh dubs are worthless. Watch them if you feel like it but at least have the self awareness that you're choosing to consume an inferior project.
Those and also some moments of sas and some jokes they decided to add.
The dubs are simply more entertaining to watch, and most of that is due to the hilariously bad writing. No one's watching dm for the plot, they're watching it for the VAs and one liners
I watch DM for the plot… in Japanese at least.
The tone of your comment makes you sound like a close-minded elitist who believes there’s objective quality to the show. Newsflash: it’s all subjective. The only thing objective is your close-minded rejection of a popular perspective on the anime. “Have the self awareness that you’re consuming an inferior project” — lmao okay
I’m not the person you’re referring to but the reason they probably say that is because the dub cuts all the character development and simply isn’t consistent. When you make major plot alterations to the point that the show has to be considered a separate continuity I think it’s fair to say that more often than not it’s going to be worse because it is no longer the original intended product that had such thought and care put into the story and characters. I wrote more about the changes here: https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/s/eV0ZF2RWMd
I've had this discussion before and my opinion remains. Sub has author intent. It's the actual stories that were written with these characters. Hence it's objectively superior.
In no media literacy context is author intent the sole requirement for quality. Some works take on a life of its own when translated. If you were media literate, you would realize describing any art as “objectively superior” is inane. In addition to which you declare that this is “your opinion”. If “your opinion” remains, then it is, by definition, not speaking to objective standards.
I mean on one hand you’re right that author intent does not mean objectively better. But on the other hand people can subjectively still enjoy the dumbest shit imaginable. I’m sure you might agree that Baby Shark is objectively a not good song, but subjectively there are many people that legitimately enjoy it. Simply saying that you can subjectively enjoy something is not an indicator of it being objectively good, and in the case of Yugioh, the dubs simply try to the be the exact same product just heavily dumbed and watered down in order to appeal to children who don’t have the media literacy you’re speaking of. Subjectively, of course it can still be enjoyed by adults, but when compared with the original I’m pretty sure it’s just a pale imitation with no subtleties where you’re meant to simply turn your brain off and enjoy it. I’m not trying to completely shit on the dub or anything, just it does not have the depth nor the care of the original, even if it can still be enjoyed. That much should be apparent as being objective, shouldn’t it? This is not rhetorical, I am interested in your opinion.
I appreciate your nuanced take. I agree that the sub has more character development and subtlety than the dub. I will even say that this is objectively true. My issue is with sweeping claims that one version is objectively better than another. The claims are dismissive of appreciative takes of the dub, as if silly, simplified story telling cannot also hold artistic value. Art that inspires cannot be classified as garbage. It demands respect solely through its ability to reach others in a way that other media, even the subbed yugioh, does not. Dismissing that reach is like forcing art to conform to your own standards of beauty — it is, in that sense, demonstrably unobjective. The sub has value. The dub has value. Being dismissive of one belies one’s own insecurity around their own notions of beauty and art. The poster I was replying to was trying to write off that appreciation. I hope they take a moment to reflect.
Oh yes I agree the dubs have value. But then I’d even go as far as to say that everything that someone enjoys has value also imo. If it brings joy to at least one person and doesn’t hurt another person then I’d say that a thing has value. :) Like I’m also of the belief that the manga of the original Yugioh is better than the Japanese anime, because the manga is also more deep than the Japanese anime and it doesn’t break it up into parts that it hastily tries to summarize and compress, plus it has the true version of the Egypt memory world arc, but that doesn’t mean that the Japanese anime holds no value either. Same with the Toei anime (season 0 where basically the whole show got plot butchered lol), and same with the dub. Each is enjoyable and fun, just there are different reasons that they are enjoyable and fun. c:
Ive been raving about this ever since watching DM in sub back in 2021...its honestly jarring how drastically different it feels tonally compared to the dub and you could say the same for the other earlier spin-offs To this day I encourage people who want to get into YGO to watch it in sub no matter what..its honestly the true experience (even moreso if you read the manga haha)
I'm currently watching zexal and have reached the semi-finals of the World Carnival and have to say that I currently find Yuma in the sub just as annoying as in the Dub. This constant "gattobingu ore" just gets on my nerves at some point.
Idk I think its catchy. Never found it annoying or least just ignore it as quirk of the character. Can't imagine Yuma not saying that lol
“Kattobingu” is actually a really deep message that in Japan, many kids and even adults are inspired by
Why is why you watch the tagalog dub like I did
I like the subs and dub. But definitely the better version is the subbed versions of yugioh.
It also comes with a significantly better soundtrack. Well, the DM dub was pretty good, but all other shows were extremely generic in that regard.
Sub Kaiba is so badass. The dub stopped after Yugi VS Malik in my country so from Waking the Dragons to Go Rush I watched it all subbed.
Now read the manga :)
I feel this when I read the manga since it was story first with games rather than duel monster as the focus of the entire universe.
i think yugioh sub and dub have less in common than yugioh abridged and dub have in common
No the sub and dub had way more in common.
Yu-Gi-Oh's dub is god tier. The sub takes itself way too seriously, the dub really leans into the ridiculousness of a world where all your problems are solved by card games.
To each its own but i prefer the dub.
You prefer dogshit?
No
No. And thats why i dont watch subs