Replying to the translation censorship/rewrite discussion here so as not to clutter this thread with off topic stuff:
You are missing the point of why people hated 4Kids! It's because the horribly edited version was the only version. There was no uncut alternative. And for some of the shows that they licensed that is still true to this day. For example Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters has never had an fully uncut English DVD release. They did uncut (redubbed no less) DVDs for the first few episodes as a failed experiment, and now finally after decades you can watch (almost) the entire series in Japanese with subtitles on CrunchyRoll. But that is in spite of 4Kids! best efforts to keep people from ever watching the show uncut. Funimation had to do an edited version of Yu Yu Hakusho to get onto TV, but at least you could go buy the uncut version on DVD.
That's not to say Funimation is any better with this crap. Dragon Ball and Yu-Gi-Oh! are both total laughing stocks that aren't taken seriously even among anime fans who completely revere other Shonen Jump series. And it is for one obvious reason. They both had terrible English dubs with psychotically bad casting decisions (occasionally mixed with a few good ones) and script rewrites so drastic as to often be completely opposite the themes being expressed in the Japanese version (for example famously Goku's speech begging Kuririn not to kill Vegeta). For years these were the only ways available to legally watch those shows. Maybe Funimation later undid some of these rewrites in one of their many, many redubs. Who cares. Kai is shit!
Don't get me started on "abridged series" and other popular youtube parodies. I stopped liking them the moment I realized that all they actually do is make it less likely people will ever want to watch the original show. Because all they know are the stupid memes, so they'll watch 5 minutes of the original show and say "Hey, this isn't funny!" and turn it off.
I probably have bias, but to me I thought the Yu-Gi-Oh! Dub wasn't that bad. But as a collector of the OG DVDs, I can confirm it was a pain in the ass to get the un-cut ones. I think the only one I don't own was the first one, but I would have to double check my collection. Now the REAL pain in the ass was when it came to Seasons 3-5. Season 3 was half cannon half non-cannon, season 4 was all filler, and half of season 5 was filler.
I myself am unsure if I own all the DVD's for seasons 3-4 since I got them all 2nd hand from shopping around as a kid and 4kids is a cluster fuck, I however do not own any from season 5.
The way they handled the S3 DVDs if I remember right was they cut ALL the digital world shit out. So when you watched the DVD's it was just a sudden LEAP to Alcatraz island. The only way to watch all the Digital world shit was to buy the box sets that would come MUCH much later.
Season 4, last time I checked there were only 3 DVDs?. It had the dragons Timaius, Heremos, and Critias and that was it. No more after that as far as I know. If I counted right, you are left in the middle of the Joey vs Valon fight on the last dvd they made and I can assume it'll jump STRAIGHT to the KC grand prix if you were dvd only. The reason being season 4's dvd's were 9 episodes a piece. You still have 14 episodes with no clue wtf is going on from why 2 white boy are beating the shit outta eachother in an alleyway over a girl only to jump in s5 like nothing weird ever happened. Also last time I checked, years ago, the 3rd dvd for S4 was only released in Australia? But again I could be wrong since this is looking like a rabbit hole itself.
I cannot comment on anything from season 5 dvd wise sadly.
Also buying those DVD'S now is a bitch. As a kid who was trying to get her hands on all the singlets it was so fun, but now as an adult I have to wade through people reselling the newer DVD repackages. My favorite thing was the covers on all the dvd's and I'm shocked how much the prices went down from when I was a kid.
I hope you're only referring to the original Yu-Gi-Oh! dub and not the miracle that was the GX dub that was sadly cut short from dubbing the last season. Just for Chazz alone the dub is good, but it's also helped that it reads like 4kids didn't even look at the scripts before approving them with how much self parody is in it. The series is a gold mine for "what this isn't an abridged, it's official?" in a similar vein to Ghost Stories or the often forgotten Duel Masters dub.
GOD GX WAS A RIDE IN DUB. Course there were a few weird moments in the sub I would need to do a rewatch for.
Scene's include:
- Syrus, Jaden, and Chumley taking a bath together and for some reason there is a bear and some other animal washing their backs
- I can't remember if the episode was cut but there was one where Hasselberry dueled the ra yellow dorm master because nobody ate lunch there anymore or something weird like that.
- Bastion turning into a nudist and running away from duel academy
- a ton more I cannot remember to save my life.
Dub wise the
- Hey Jaden uhhh if you got any grilled cheese in your lunch box i'll keep it safe for you
- the ENTIRE dark scorpions duel was a ride "I summon myself to the field!"
- Aster's nasally voice going "OOPS I FORGOT TO TURN OFF MY CELLPHONE" and Jaden about to beat his ass
5d's was great too. I still remember Yusei walking into a bar for a glass of milk.
If you have any way to obtain GX S2 in it's box set glory, please tell me. The only way to get it for some reason is in PAL region and after years of kicking it around I might have to bite the bullet and buy it since I cannot find the American one ANYWHERE for some reason.
Also to top off my Yu-Gi-Oh! spurging, interesting tidbit I did learn years ago, was that funimation DID try to make a dub of Zexal. I used to watch Little Kuriboh's livestreams as a kid and the VA for Yuma, who was a girl before we got Eli Jay (the voice of Yuma now), was there to answer some questions about it. TLDR: 4kids still was the copyright holder to ALL Yu-Gi-Oh! at the time so due to that and licensing issues, it fell through. I remember Shark was played by Vic Mignogna in the clip I saw, or it at least sounded like him. There might be a clip of it still on youtube but they did the whole Japanese names shit and it was pretty good But at the time of the livestream, we WERE going to get a funi-dub of Zexal before it got shelved.
Edit: changed who voiced Shark in the funi-zexal dub, and I found the clip that was
floating around the internet.
