Okay. So.
This is a VERY complicated question to consider, because you need to consider what exactly 4Kids' YGO dub entailed for YGO as a brand. It wasn't just "oh they dubbed it" the end.
4Kids is what catapulted the series into an international phenomenon and not just some popular thing in Japan that nobody else has ever heard of. And the thing to consider is that it wasn't just some no name licensing company in the US that was funding YGO back then. It was fucking Warner Brothers.
On paper? The YGO consortium was probably free to do what it wanted. In practice? Money talks. When one of the biggest companies in Hollywood says they want to give you a fuckton of cash to bring your brand to the entire world so they can get a chunk of the profits, 9/10 times you're going to fucking listen to then.
And that's the difference between say, ARC-V and DSOD being produced at the same time and say, 4kids dubbing YGO while NAS and Gallop producing YGO in Japan. Warner and 4Kids would have had FAR more influence in the production of YGO back in its heyday than the DSOD staff would have had over DM.
Which would explain why the "Waking the Dragons" arc is so heavily Duelist Kingdom focused in terms of its returning cast and why the entire arc takes place in America. Like, ever notice how pretty much every returning character in that arc is from pre-Battle City, and how the arc first started airing in Japan long before Battle City was over in the US?
It's pretty clear that some execs that knew the US had yet to finish Battle City made "suggestions" to SOMEBODY in the planning chain if you ask me, even if nobody's ever going to confirm it.
Though, to be fair, this isn't necessarily confirmation that it's 4Kids or Warner that made the final call. The decision to try and market more to the US could have just as well been made on the Japanese end to try and increase the appeal of the brand so their investors would give them more money.
But it's hard to say that YGO's sudden popularity in the US and elsewhere didn't affect executive decisions on how it was going to be produced and marketed going forward. When there's that much money involved, SOMETHING is going to change to try and bolster sales.
Like, this shit's complicated.
The question of whether 4Kids directly affected production basically it comes down to how strongly investors and rights holders voiced their opinions at the time and who was arguing for what.
And some of the choices in the dubs aren't even the fault of 4Kids.
Like, people like to blame 4Kids for a lot of the censorship but if you go through US broadcasting trends in the 80's~00's there were a TON of restrictions that came into effect for various reasons, even if not all of them were legally binding.
Throw in the fact that a lot of TV networks had double standards in what they were and weren't willing to let slide, and well. Yeah.
Ever notice how Spider-Man TAS never directly mentions death? The Shadow Realm shit's been around for WAY longer than YGO, folks.
IIRC it's also part of why the DCAU moved from KidsWB to mostly Cartoon Network. Cable channels were subject to less scrutiny and were willing to give people more freedom in general.
See, now there’s where things get really interesting.
If you look at the movie, there’s clearly SOME influence from Kaz in the planning stages.
The idea of Pegasus having a secret contingency to the Egyptian gods is an unused plot idea he later gave to Itou for YGO R.
And the whole “8th Millennium Item” gimmick and the heavy focus on Kaiba + new Blue-Eyes evolutions were reused for DSOD.
So it feels like there’s clearly more to it than just “4Kids commissioned a movie” and whatnot.
Especially considering how IIRC the movie basically got an extended cut for its JP release, and how it even got a novelization in Japan that fleshes it out more. Which is weird given how that said movie never got a theatrical release in Japan.
Then consider how Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon is a thing despite Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon being only in Pyramid of Light, or how both dragons and the Pyramid of Light cards were released in Japan BEFORE the JP release of the movie.
Like, there seems to have been something going on there behind the scenes, though I’m not exactly sure what.
There MAY have been a point in the YGO pipeline where they initially intended on having the original series and the DM anime run longer before eventually deciding to do the spinoff format, but that’s speculation on my part.
It’s also worth noting that Pyramid of Light’s director(and animation director) was the director of GX, and the main writer for it was also the main writer for most of GX. The main animation studio that worked with Gallop on Pyramid of Light is also the same as GX, btw.
Couple that with the animation wonk in the last season of DM and it does seem possible that there was something screwy going on in the animation pipeline side of things and possibly the higher ups as well.
Would explain why the last season of DM had such haphazard animation if they were working on finishing DM, whilst also working on GX, Pyramid of Light, and Capsule Monsters all at the same time.
Also worth noting that the last season of DM had almost caught up to the manga by the time it started airing and Kaz wasn’t exactly in good condition at the time, soooo there’s a lot of potential variables as to what was happening.
Also, speaking of Capsule Monsters.
This shit is ancient so I can’t really find any concrete proof, but I vaguely remember there being comments on Japanese web forums back in like the late 2000’s about how there were supposedly plans to air Capsule Monsters after GX.
Capsule Monsters’ main director also happens to be Ono Katsumi, the same person who directed 5d’s and ARC-V, and it’s even listed on Japanese internet as Yu-Gi-Oh! ALEX from what I recall.
Again, hard to say what exactly went down but given how we also had the YGO R spinoff manga(which isn’t technically canon, mind you) I think that the YGO consortium had originally planned on more content with the original cast before going all in on GX.
Would explain why GX didn’t get proper releases of its cards until about 6 months after GX started airing(First aired in Japan in October, didn’t get Lost Millennium until late February), and why significant chunks of S1 of GX mostly focused on marketing cards that had already been released OCG side.
Another interesting thing to note is that GX got its first proper pack cover right around the time Pyramid of Light aired in Japan, soooo. Yeah. No concrete proof but it does feel like SOMETHING happened.
Would also explain why GX S1 started out as a mostly episodic low stakes slice of life series before going full YGO with the Seven Stars.
As for why they would suddenly swerve into GX if these suspicions turn out to be correct?
Again, working from memory here but IIRC YGO had kind of started falling off after Battle City.
Then GX came onto the scene in Japan and apparently kids were crazy about it to the point where it apparently revived the brand in terms of marketing, according to what I’ve heard from others over the years IIRC.
So it would make sense if they decided to just capitalize on what was currently selling.
Especially given how after Pyramid of Light and the Pokemon movies outside of Mewtwo Strikes Back underperformed at US box offices, Hollywood seemed less interested in investing in anime by late 2004.
Making more DM content to try and ride the original’s popularity, then scrapping plans when the DM content underperformed and Hollywood pulled investments seems pretty plausible.
Especially if GX had overperformed in comparison and how Gallop clearly didn’t have the production capacity to run like 4 concurrent YGO projects at once.
Again, all just conjecture.
Okay, yes, THIS is the reasonable speculation I was hoping for.
Also...*that* guy was the director of Capsule Monsters?! THAT guy?!? ...dammit all, Ono will not stop **taunting** me!!!
no, seriously. dubbing *does not impact* the original JP production of the anime let alone how it's marketed there. at most there will be some japanese fans aware of the 4kids dub and getting a good laugh out of the censorships required to put yugioh on western broadcast TV. that's all.
At least broadly in cases like *Pokémon*, we know that the existence of dubs did affect the Japanese original. For example, a former director reduced the amount of Japanese cultural references to help appeal to the global market ([LINK](https://www.pokebeach.com/2008/07/interview-with-masamitsu-hidaka-at-anime-expo)), which might explain why the original started using a pseudo-language instead of Japanese text too.
However, specifically in regard to *Yu-Gi-Oh!*, yeah I can’t recall any indication that they cared. The easiest way to show that would be to no longer show realistic depictions of the cards, but they still do lol.
I am aware of that, and I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing consideration of Gallop's role in animating the things that 4Kids wrote for them, and to question whether or not that affected concurrent production of the shows proper.
> or am I just talking out of my Friendonkey?
This.
The only time 4Kids would have had an impact on production was for the content they directly commissioned in the early 2000s like Capsule Monsters and Pyramid of Light. They otherwise had no impact on the wider production of the anime.
Nothing at all in the main series. Gx was not even dubbed fully. 4kids is just considered awful outside US. Brazilian dub team worked their ass off to try to keep YGO back to its roots even though they had to use 4kids edition.
From what I've heard, 4Kids wanted to catch up to where the card game was, so the back halves of GX and 5Ds got cut off when Synchro summoning then XYZ summoning were introduced. Just another example of companies prioritizing selling stuff to kids over quality.
Okay. So. This is a VERY complicated question to consider, because you need to consider what exactly 4Kids' YGO dub entailed for YGO as a brand. It wasn't just "oh they dubbed it" the end. 4Kids is what catapulted the series into an international phenomenon and not just some popular thing in Japan that nobody else has ever heard of. And the thing to consider is that it wasn't just some no name licensing company in the US that was funding YGO back then. It was fucking Warner Brothers. On paper? The YGO consortium was probably free to do what it wanted. In practice? Money talks. When one of the biggest companies in Hollywood says they want to give you a fuckton of cash to bring your brand to the entire world so they can get a chunk of the profits, 9/10 times you're going to fucking listen to then. And that's the difference between say, ARC-V and DSOD being produced at the same time and say, 4kids dubbing YGO while NAS and Gallop producing YGO in Japan. Warner and 4Kids would have had FAR more influence in the production of YGO back in its heyday than the DSOD staff would have had over DM. Which would explain why the "Waking the Dragons" arc is so heavily Duelist Kingdom focused in terms of its returning cast and why the entire arc takes place in America. Like, ever notice how pretty much every returning character in that arc is from pre-Battle City, and how the arc first started airing in Japan long before Battle City was over in the US? It's pretty clear that some execs that knew the US had yet to finish Battle City made "suggestions" to SOMEBODY in the planning chain if you ask me, even if nobody's ever going to confirm it. Though, to be fair, this isn't necessarily confirmation that it's 4Kids or Warner that made the final call. The decision to try and market more to the US could have just as well been made on the Japanese end to try and increase the appeal of the brand so their investors would give them more money. But it's hard to say that YGO's sudden popularity in the US and elsewhere didn't affect executive decisions on how it was going to be produced and marketed going forward. When there's that much money involved, SOMETHING is going to change to try and bolster sales. Like, this shit's complicated. The question of whether 4Kids directly affected production basically it comes down to how strongly investors and rights holders voiced their opinions at the time and who was arguing for what. And some of the choices in the dubs aren't even the fault of 4Kids. Like, people like to blame 4Kids for a lot of the censorship but if you go through US broadcasting trends in the 80's~00's there were a TON of restrictions that came into effect for various reasons, even if not all of them were legally binding. Throw in the fact that a lot of TV networks had double standards in what they were and weren't willing to let slide, and well. Yeah. Ever notice how Spider-Man TAS never directly mentions death? The Shadow Realm shit's been around for WAY longer than YGO, folks. IIRC it's also part of why the DCAU moved from KidsWB to mostly Cartoon Network. Cable channels were subject to less scrutiny and were willing to give people more freedom in general.
0k, yes, fair, interesting...so what about that movie that didn't originate there, or those 12 episodes that were NEVER in Japanese?
See, now there’s where things get really interesting. If you look at the movie, there’s clearly SOME influence from Kaz in the planning stages. The idea of Pegasus having a secret contingency to the Egyptian gods is an unused plot idea he later gave to Itou for YGO R. And the whole “8th Millennium Item” gimmick and the heavy focus on Kaiba + new Blue-Eyes evolutions were reused for DSOD. So it feels like there’s clearly more to it than just “4Kids commissioned a movie” and whatnot. Especially considering how IIRC the movie basically got an extended cut for its JP release, and how it even got a novelization in Japan that fleshes it out more. Which is weird given how that said movie never got a theatrical release in Japan. Then consider how Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon is a thing despite Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon being only in Pyramid of Light, or how both dragons and the Pyramid of Light cards were released in Japan BEFORE the JP release of the movie. Like, there seems to have been something going on there behind the scenes, though I’m not exactly sure what. There MAY have been a point in the YGO pipeline where they initially intended on having the original series and the DM anime run longer before eventually deciding to do the spinoff format, but that’s speculation on my part. It’s also worth noting that Pyramid of Light’s director(and animation director) was the director of GX, and the main writer for it was also the main writer for most of GX. The main animation studio that worked with Gallop on Pyramid of Light is also the same as GX, btw. Couple that with the animation wonk in the last season of DM and it does seem possible that there was something screwy going on in the animation pipeline side of things and possibly the higher ups as well. Would explain why the last season of DM had such haphazard animation if they were working on finishing DM, whilst also working on GX, Pyramid of Light, and Capsule Monsters all at the same time. Also worth noting that the last season of DM had almost caught up to the manga by the time it started airing and Kaz wasn’t exactly in good condition at the time, soooo there’s a lot of potential variables as to what was happening. Also, speaking of Capsule Monsters. This shit is ancient so I can’t really find any concrete proof, but I vaguely remember there being comments on Japanese web forums back in like the late 2000’s about how there were supposedly plans to air Capsule Monsters after GX. Capsule Monsters’ main director also happens to be Ono Katsumi, the same person who directed 5d’s and ARC-V, and it’s even listed on Japanese internet as Yu-Gi-Oh! ALEX from what I recall. Again, hard to say what exactly went down but given how we also had the YGO R spinoff manga(which isn’t technically canon, mind you) I think that the YGO consortium had originally planned on more content with the original cast before going all in on GX. Would explain why GX didn’t get proper releases of its cards until about 6 months after GX started airing(First aired in Japan in October, didn’t get Lost Millennium until late February), and why significant chunks of S1 of GX mostly focused on marketing cards that had already been released OCG side. Another interesting thing to note is that GX got its first proper pack cover right around the time Pyramid of Light aired in Japan, soooo. Yeah. No concrete proof but it does feel like SOMETHING happened. Would also explain why GX S1 started out as a mostly episodic low stakes slice of life series before going full YGO with the Seven Stars. As for why they would suddenly swerve into GX if these suspicions turn out to be correct? Again, working from memory here but IIRC YGO had kind of started falling off after Battle City. Then GX came onto the scene in Japan and apparently kids were crazy about it to the point where it apparently revived the brand in terms of marketing, according to what I’ve heard from others over the years IIRC. So it would make sense if they decided to just capitalize on what was currently selling. Especially given how after Pyramid of Light and the Pokemon movies outside of Mewtwo Strikes Back underperformed at US box offices, Hollywood seemed less interested in investing in anime by late 2004. Making more DM content to try and ride the original’s popularity, then scrapping plans when the DM content underperformed and Hollywood pulled investments seems pretty plausible. Especially if GX had overperformed in comparison and how Gallop clearly didn’t have the production capacity to run like 4 concurrent YGO projects at once. Again, all just conjecture.
Okay, yes, THIS is the reasonable speculation I was hoping for. Also...*that* guy was the director of Capsule Monsters?! THAT guy?!? ...dammit all, Ono will not stop **taunting** me!!!
no, seriously. dubbing *does not impact* the original JP production of the anime let alone how it's marketed there. at most there will be some japanese fans aware of the 4kids dub and getting a good laugh out of the censorships required to put yugioh on western broadcast TV. that's all.
At least broadly in cases like *Pokémon*, we know that the existence of dubs did affect the Japanese original. For example, a former director reduced the amount of Japanese cultural references to help appeal to the global market ([LINK](https://www.pokebeach.com/2008/07/interview-with-masamitsu-hidaka-at-anime-expo)), which might explain why the original started using a pseudo-language instead of Japanese text too. However, specifically in regard to *Yu-Gi-Oh!*, yeah I can’t recall any indication that they cared. The easiest way to show that would be to no longer show realistic depictions of the cards, but they still do lol.
I am aware of that, and I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing consideration of Gallop's role in animating the things that 4Kids wrote for them, and to question whether or not that affected concurrent production of the shows proper.
> or am I just talking out of my Friendonkey? This. The only time 4Kids would have had an impact on production was for the content they directly commissioned in the early 2000s like Capsule Monsters and Pyramid of Light. They otherwise had no impact on the wider production of the anime.
*That's what I'm asking about.* Did anyone actually *read* the post?
Depending on the year, there was the writers strike in 2008. That could have been the reason for the reduced episode count.
Nothing at all in the main series. Gx was not even dubbed fully. 4kids is just considered awful outside US. Brazilian dub team worked their ass off to try to keep YGO back to its roots even though they had to use 4kids edition.
[удалено]
Iirc the situation with 4KIDS was more about getting sued for unpaid royalties.
They believed Zexal was more popular. They did the same thing GX to 5Ds.
From what I've heard, 4Kids wanted to catch up to where the card game was, so the back halves of GX and 5Ds got cut off when Synchro summoning then XYZ summoning were introduced. Just another example of companies prioritizing selling stuff to kids over quality.
I wish more people talked about these.
Yea