Fuzzy notes of nostalgia creep their way into the forefront of memory, making one recall simple times. A common fond recollection is of watching a beloved children’s show while feeling wholehearted enjoyment. Rewatching that show in later years may result in disappointment, but nostalgia’s enchanting power is not the only factor at fault.

Early English dubs of anime are infamous for their questionable script changes, which are often made in attempts of localization, or making the media more “suitable” and centered around a different place. One of the most notorious dubbing companies was America’s 4Kids Entertainment, often referred to as 4Kids, which specialized in creating the English dubs of many children’s anime. 4Kids had a habit of favoring jokes over plot-relevant details in the script, as well as making poor attempts at American localization and censorship. They are renowned for their work on series like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, most notably responsible for the former’s wordplay, “I’ll use my trusty frying pan as a drying pan!” and poor localization, demonstrated through the famous discrepancy between a character’s praising jelly-filled donuts and their clearly holding an onigiri.

4Kids’ work on Yu-Gi-Oh! is similarly questionable. Granted, Japanese media productions have a lot more leeway when presenting dark themes to children – a luxury that western companies like 4Kids do not have. Yu-Gi-Oh!, an anime about “duels” involving weapons, monsters, and threats, has plenty of elements that are too dangerous for the young American audience. This resulted in the censorship of guns and infamous threats of sending the opponents to the imaginary “Shadow Realm” or “stars,” as opposed to more aggressive, albeit not entirely achievable, threats.

4Kids’ dubious decisions in script revision are not well received by many fans, reflected in the fan-made abridged English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! by YouTuber LittleKuriboh, who often uses the caption, “[Actual 4Kids dialogue],” to mock a strange line and who had changed one of the plotlines to be of defeating the 4Kids company. (Please note the content warning in each episode’s description if you decide to watch it.)

Context: Yu-Gi-Oh!

Yu-Gi-Oh!, often abbreviated as YGO, is a children’s anime that takes place in a world dominated by the card game “Duel Monsters” in English and “Yu-Gi-Oh!” in Japanese. Every problem that appears in this world, ranging from convincing someone to try tomatoes to preventing the end of the world, is solved through a match of Duel Monsters. The turn-based card game is played through “duels,” with a standard duel pitting two “duelists” against each other in an attempt to whittle the other’s “Life Points” down to zero. The game is executed with many different types of cards: Monster, Spell, and Trap. Holograms bring the magical creatures in the cards to life to make duels more exhilarating, though it is later revealed that actual living creatures are inside of the cards.

The anime’s duels are often dramatized and prolonged; duelists painstakingly explain their every move, react as if the damage inflicted upon their Life Points was physical, and are unable to avoid obvious traps and effects that they would have known about if they simply read their opponent’s card’s effect. Major duels, much to some fans’ dismay, can be prolonged over two or more episodes. The longest duel lasted five episodes.

The YGO anime franchise so far consists of one main series and seven spin-off series. The first spin-off series, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, which fans refer to as GX and will be the focus of this article, was 4Kids’ most unfaithful English dub in the franchise due to incessant jokes and its incompleteness. 4Kids’ dub can be watched on YouTube (Season 1, Season 2, Season 3) and the official Yu-Gi-Oh! website.

Context: YGO GX

GX – which stands for Generation neXt – takes place in Duel Academy, or Duel Academia in the original. Duel Academy is a prestigious co-ed school founded by Seto Kaiba, who was a main character in the first YGO series. The school is located on an undisclosed island and is split into three main houses with different ranks, each based on one of the three Egyptian God Cards. Slifer Red is the lowest house, Ra Yellow is the average house, and Obelisk Blue is the highest.

GX starts out as a typical high school story, following the main character’s years there. However, as the show continues, the characters progressively get involved in stranger and more dangerous situations, ranging from their teacher being a homunculus whose deteriorating real body was kept underground and a cult taking control of their entire school, to being trapped in another dimension and human experimentation, that all must ultimately be resolved through the power of Duel Monsters.

Dark Themes

The dub’s upbeat introductory song about “Chilling out with the crew in the schoolyard,” and the enthusiastic recap line “Last time on Yu-Gi-Oh! GX!” slowly starts to become insensitive and inappropriate as the cast is plunged into darker and darker situations and the main character’s friends start dying – though 4Kids never outright states this. In fact, 4Kids removes all references to death altogether, with one character’s father being “kidnapped” instead of murdered.

4Kids also censors firearms despite their only being equipment cards in Duel Monsters, changing them to “blasters.”

Names

The most obvious changes in the English dub are those made to the names. 4Kids has three methods when dealing with Japanese names: changing them into more “American” ones, changing the name into a different Japanese name, or keeping the name, which usually applies with characters who already have somewhat-western names. Sometimes, 4Kids will keep the initials of the original or even the surname, but other times 4Kids will create a name bearing no trace of the original.

The main character Judai Yuki was changed to Jaden Yuki, his best friend was changed from Sho Marufuji to Syrus Truesdale, the compulsory female character was changed from Asuka Tenjoin to Alexis Rhodes, and Jaden’s rival was changed from Jun Manjoume to Chazz Princeton. The latter two’s surnames were taken from famous colleges, reflecting their prestige as Obelisk Blue students. Other notable changes include: Edo Phoenix to Aster Phoenix, which got rid of the initial association stemming from phoenixes being prevalent in art during Japan’s Edo Period; Hayato Maeda to Chumley Huffington, Daitokuji-Sensei to Lyman Banner, and Saotome Rei to Blair Flannigan, which barely have any trace of the original name; and Cronos de Medici to Vellian Crowler, which has a meaner connotation.

For the rest of this article, the English dub names will be used. When comparing characters, the English and Japanese names will be used to make distinctions.

Yubel

Yubel is a very unique character in the GX cast, being a card spirit whose past life had been Jaden’s past life’s lover. Yubel had ultimately sacrificed their humanity to protect Jaden, having surgery done to combine themself with a dragon and obtaining their current appearance: a desaturated, multi-colored humanoid with claws, dragon wings, heterochromia, and a third eye.

Years later, Yubel was reincarnated as a card spirit and still sought to protect their lover, who was now reincarnated as a young Jaden. Unfortunately, Yubel was too overprotective and became aggressive towards Jaden’s friends, so Jaden decided to send Yubel into space to atone, and his parents removed Yubel from his memories. The only problem that 4Kids found with this story was Yubel’s gender.

In the original Japanese adaptation, Yubel is portrayed as genderfluid, switching between feminine and masculine voices. Yubel had feminine and masculine body parts, with a shirt that only covered half of their chest to demonstrate that. 4Kids deemed having a genderfluid character with any kind of romantic feelings for the male main character to be problematic, so the English dub cut out all signs of masculinity within Yubel, giving them a strictly feminine voice and recoloring their outfit to be a more concealing, complete shirt.

[This outfit treatment was also given to the definite female monsters like Burstinatrix (Burst Lady in the original) and Blade Skater.]

Jaden Yuki

Jaden’s dialogue was riddled with far more jokes and quips than his original, albeit still playful, character, which made him a much more carefree and flippant person. He excessively uses the adjective “sweet” for description and often goes by the nickname “Jay,” presenting himself as a casual and nonchalant person.

The difference in attitudes can be observed with their first lines in Episode 1, where Jaden was running late to the Duel Academy entrance exam. In the English dub, Jaden joked about how his tardiness couldn’t be punished because he wasn’t officially a student yet. In the original, Judai was excited, viewing this as a challenge he needed to overcome.

The addition of more remarks also makes him a ruder person and, combined with his being unfazed to people disintegrating in front of him, present his character as unempathetic. He has a lot more banter with the rest of the cast. The banter is still watchable, but it can be overbearing when it replaces important information during a duel.

Additionally, his winning catchphrase was changed from, “Gotcha! That was a fun duel!” to a simple, “That’s game!” No attempts were made to localize his favorite food of fried shrimp.

The most drastic change 4Kids made to Jaden’s character was killing him.

The events of Season 3 resulted in the main cast being trapped in another dimension. In the finale, Jaden ultimately fused his soul with Yubel’s during a duel, returning his friends to their original world. Jaden reunites with them roughly a week afterward in Season 4, which 4Kids unfortunately did not dub due to being behind schedule and to a desire to start the English dub of the next spin-off before the year ended. As a result, Jaden was dead in the dub.

Interestingly, 4Kids decided to dub the movie, Bonds Beyond Time, which starred Jaden specifically after his mental growth and apparent physical changes in Season 4. To those who only watch the dub, it would appear as if Jaden had miraculously been resurrected.

Syrus Truesdale

Syrus Truesdale, originally Sho Marufuji, has a very drastic change in personality with the English dub. Syrus takes on a more self-aware role, with his lines more often than not riddled with complaints about how milquetoast his original characterization is and the show’s absurdity.

Jaden often refers to Syrus as “Sy,” while Syrus uses the nickname of “Jay” for Jaden, as many of his other friends do. In the original Japanese, Sho calls Judai “Aniki,” an informal honorific for an older brother or older brother-like figure.

Chazz Princeton

Chazz Princeton, originally Jun Manjoume, is a rich, pretentious, and conceited student from the Obelisk Blue dorm. This characterization was exaggerated in the dub, partly shown through his new surname that references the Ivy League Princeton University. His pride is especially demonstrated in his reactions in Season 3 when a richer transfer student was introduced.

His catchphrase was changed from “1, 10, 100, 1,000! Manjoume Thunder!” to the simple, “Chazz it up!” This was likely due to the original’s deep roots in the Japanese language.

Aster Phoenix

Aster is a famous professional prodigy duelist and a character who is obsessed with destiny. Aster and Jaden do not have the best relationship after the former transfers to the latter’s school, shown in a press conference where Aster falsely claimed that a certain student had stolen his deck and challenged him. 4Kids crafts the ludicrous line “I’m the best; I can’t be beat, and to prove it I’m challenging this schoolboy. I won’t tell you his name, but it rhymes with… Shmaden Shmuki! Hear me, Shmaden?”

Aster’s father designed Duel Monsters cards, but was unfortunately kidnapped – though he was murdered in the original – by a thief who stole the powerful Ultimate Destiny Card he made. Aster is out for revenge, defeating countless other duelists to search through their decks for the card. In the original, Aster had gone around shouting, “Where is The D?”, while in the dub he simply searches for “The Ultimate Destiny Card.”

Aster was adopted by another famous duelist by the name of “The D” in the English dub and “DD” in the Japanese who, unbeknownst to him, was the perpetrator. The English dub plays around with the humorous nature of this new name, with one character exclaiming, “I’ve always wanted to see The D in action!” whilst watching one of his duels.

Jesse Anderson

Jesse Anderson, originally Johan Anderson, was introduced as a transfer student from North Duel Academy, which was located in a Nordic country. Johan, reasonably, was Nordic; however, 4Kids decided that being Southern American was more fitting and gave him an accent representing that.

Hot Sauce

4Kids poorly makes fun of Chumley Huffington’s body type, making him repeatedly mention grilled cheese, and he says the phrase, “Not ‘licious,” when something unfavorable occurs – characteristics that were not present in the original.

Moreover, in one episode, Chumley’s father wanted him to leave Duel Academy and return home. His father ran a company for alcoholic beverages in the original, which was censored as hot sauce in the English dub. This censorship was done with a red tint and proved to be difficult when Chumley had to duel his father, who wielded a deck of drunk monsters that were implausibly changed to “dizzy” monsters.

A different character, Bastion Misawa, originally Daichi Misawa, had fallen in love, but was rejected. The emotional impact this had was originally shown through his absentmindedly drinking hot sauce. However, 4Kids cut this scene out, which proved to be a questionable decision afterwards because Bastion was later depicted moping with now-unexplainable red lips from the hot sauce.

Legacy

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX was by no means a normal show. Despite self-awareness through several characters, 4Kids did little to clarify the confusing and strange situations that the cast faced, ultimately leaving more questions asked and a feeling of incompleteness.

Problems ranging from excessive jokes and major deviations in characterization, to important detail omissions as a result of often-unnecessary censorship and the frustrations felt from Season 4’s being undubbed, to even the name changes collectively resulted in a product that was a husk – bordering on mockery – of the original Japanese show.

While the 4Kids’ creative decisions may have resulted in a show that served to be a good laugh and their productions have become slightly more faithful, the English dub – which many children grew up with – was entirely a disservice to the original Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

One of the most notorious dubbing companies was America’s 4Kids Entertainment, often referred to as 4Kids, which specialized in creating the English dubs of many children’s anime. 4Kids had a habit of favoring jokes over plot-relevant details in the script, as well as making poor attempts at American localization and censorship.