History Woolseyism / YuGiOh

** Kaiba has a special disdain for Joey, who even gets dissed by his friends. They are changed to be much more encouraging, so Kaiba's bullying stands out more. This makes a special, sometimes hilarious relationship between them that makes Joey seem more plucky and sympathetic.

* The dub makes Kaiba more of a {{Jerkass}} that refuses to believe in anything anything mystical, renouncing it all as "fairy tales". This adds to his dynamic with Yami Yugi, who tries to convince Kaiba to discover more about their shared history and destiny. Kaiba himself had a rough past that he wants to put behind him, which gives him more reason of why he wouldn't want to address the past in general.

* The dub makes Kaiba more of a {{Jerkass}} that refuses to believe in anything anything mystical, renouncing it all as "fairy tales". This adds to his dynamic with Yami Yugi, who tries to convince Kaiba to believe in their shared history and destiny. Addressing the past in anyway annoys Kaiba because he wants to put his own past behind him.

--> '''Yami:''' ItsAllMyFault! Yugi, come back! ''(slams his fists on the ground)'' It should have been ''me'', not ''him''! It's not fair!

* A case of FrothyMugsOfWater also managed to make sense as well - Pegasus is shown to drink cheese and wine while watching a cartoon, but [=4kids=] changed it to "Grape Juice" and cheese. Given that Pegasus is a ManChild, and Fruit Punch is typically associated with children, this is in-character for him. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in TheMovie in which Pegasus drinks wine spritzers.

* Pegasus' goal in the original is to recreate his wife via holograms, and to do that, he has to defeat Yugi to gain control of Kaiba Corp's technology. This made sense in the manga, but ''not'' in the anime [[AdaptationInducedPlotHole in which he already has access to advanced hologram technology.]] The dub changes it so that his needing to defeat Yugi is a little more necessary: he wishes to collect his Millennium Puzzle, along with the other Millennium Items, to bring back his wife's soul and put her inside a new mechanical body rather than a hologram. While a little convoluted for what amounts to just ''asking'' him for the item, it does work, especially at the end where it's revealed that collecting the seven items ''does'' indeed open a portal to the afterlife.

* A case of FrothyMugsOfWater also managed to make sense as well - Pegasus is shown to drink cheese and wine while watching a cartoon, but [=4kids=] changed it to "Fruit punch" and cheese. Given that Pegasus is a ManChild, and Fruit Punch is typically associated with children, this is in-character for him. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in TheMovie in which Pegasus drinks wine spritzers.

* The duel with Bandit Keith (which is not in the manga) has Marik have Keith steal the Millennium Puzzle and then duel Yugi for it, as Yugi will be a much easier opponent to defeat without the Pharaoh's help. The Japanese version has Marik make Yugi and Keith duel so he can confirm that the Pharaoh sleeps in the Millennium Puzzle and Yugi is his host, things that, between his Tombkeeper upbringing and control of Keith's mind, he already knows anyway. The Japanese version also mentions Yami Yugi staying in the Millennium Puzzle and not helping Yugi because he senses Marik watching them. Not only is this a flimsy justification for him not getting involved, but the idea that Yami Yugi could take control of Yugi's body when he's not wearing the puzzle is a VoodooShark that raises a lot more questions. The dub simplifies this to "their bond is too weak for them to switch places without Yugi wearing the Puzzle."

** This is especially noticed during the Duelist Kingdom arc in the dub where even though they still teased him occasionally, they were still very supportive of Joey and believe in his abilities, which also even follows the manga, whereas the Japanese version of the anime has Joey being belittled by his friends practically all the way through.

* Several moments in the original anime of Tea and Tristan mocking Joey before or during duels were either cut or turned into one or both of them supporting him in the dub, which makes more sense since they're all friends. (Sometimes they kept or ramped up their teasing, but that was more in line with the original script than a significant change.)

* In the dub, Yami Yugi's internal monologue while dueling is in Yugi's voice, while in the Japanese version, it's Yami Yugi's voice. The dub lends a better picture to the pair's teamwork and how Yugi grows as a duelist over the course of the series. It also helps to highlight those times when little Yugi is out of commission and Yami is dueling on his own (such as against Pegasus).

* In the dub, Yami Yugi's internal monologue while dueling is in Yugi's voice, while in the Japanese version, it's Yami Yugi's voice. The dub lends a better picture to the pair's teamwork and how Yugi grows as a duelist over the course of the series.

* "The Heart of the Cards" was something made up for the English dub, explaining that a duelist can draw the right cards in a tight spot by believing in their deck and themselves and their cards will respond to that. It ended up being justified in the spin-offs where a duelist's bond with their deck gets more attention and can draw the right cards at the right times. In the Japanese version, they're hoping to get lucky and explicitly ask the "Goddess of Luck" to help them out, which stretches the suspense of disbelief when it keeps happening.

* The dub foreshadows the fate of Pegasus's wife by having him give an internal monologue about it, which his VA Darren Dunstan delivers excellently. In the original version, it was a filler conversation between Yugi's friends and Bakura.

* In the Orichalcos Arc, the dub had Dartz be responsible for the Knights' transformation into the Legendary Dragons. Which is significantly more of an explanation than the original gave for that, where Dartz didn't even know about their "true form".

* Para and Dox's whole rhyming and finishing each others sentences shtick was something that was not present during the original version where they just spoke normally, the changes helped make them considerably more interesting (and gave the Abridged Series fodder for even more jokes, including an instance where [[GotMeDoingIt Yugi and his friends start rhyming as well]]).

* Para and Dox's whole rhyming and finishing each others sentences shtick was something that was not present during the original version where they just spoke normally, the changes helped make them considerably more interesting.

* Pegasus's DubNameChange was also notable. In the Japanese version, Pegasus was his given name, with his full name being Pegasus J. Crawford. The dub more appropriately made Pegasus his surname, and his first name became Maximillion, a fitting name conveying he is a man of great wealth and taste. Further cementing it as a Woolseyism, this was one of the few name changes that stuck for the English manga translation.

* In Season 2, Marik wants to kill Dark Yugi and doesn't care about the Millennium Puzzle, while in the dub he wants to take the Millennium Puzzle from him and is only allowed to do so by beating him in a duel, by the laws of Ancient Egypt. This gave a convenient HandWave to the WhyDontYaJustShootHim? problem Marik has, he can't just kill Dark Yugi/banish him to the Shadow Realm, he has to beat him in a duel first, ''then'' he'll kill/banish him. Additionally with the Shadow Realm, Marik's plans to kill Dark Yugi were rather foolish in the original Japanese since Dark Yugi is an ancient spirit inhabiting the Millennium Puzzle, you effectively can't kill him by chopping off his legs or drowning him, you'll just kill his host. In the dub, Marik plans to send Dark Yugi to the Shadow Realm, so 4Kids made his death traps magical in nature and thus they pose a danger to him. As a side-effect, when Marik had Yami Yugi duel the possessed Joey, [=4Kids=] did ''not'' censor the idea that the loser will be dragged into the sea chained to an anchor, or that if Yami Yugi refuses to duel Marik's minion will drop a crate from a crane onto Téa. So by making Marik's death traps magical, the one trap he used where it was obvious the loser would die had a more powerful impact and thus higher stakes. While being banished to the Shadow Realm certainly is nightmarish, it is still reversible, a chance to escape. Death though, is final. It even adds a layer of FridgeBrilliance to him: being the only non-magical trap, it's the one who doesn't threaten the Pharaoh, and it's also the one when he's not dueling a minion of Marik, but one of his friends, adding a lot of of psychological pressure that could make the Pharaoh more willing to lose.

* Pegasus's DubNameChange was also notable. In the Japanese version, Pegasus was his given name, with his full name being Pegasus J. Crawford. The dub more appropriately made Pegasus his surname, and his first name became Maximillion, a fitting name conveying he is a man of great wealth and taste. Further cementing it as a Woolseyism, this was one of the few name changes that stuck for the English manga translation.
* The Shadow Realm, as a concept, was actually largely created by ''4Kids'' for the dub (so they can NeverSayDie as much as they can get away with). The original Japanese had "Shadow Games" that were fought in another dimension and summoned monsters, and if you lost your mind could be sent to a prison dimension, but it was 4Kids that combined all these concepts into a unified "Shadow Realm." For a number of people, the idea of your soul being sent straight to the verse's equivalent to Hell, as opposed to simply dying, is much more terrifying. This especially works during the championship duel against Pegasus, where Yami warns an increasingly exhausted Yugi that if he keeps on fighting, "your soul will be shredded!" The Japanese version did imply that Shadow Games were fought in another dimension, and later used the concept of a "World of Darkness" in the final season of ''GX''.

* Again, in the Orichalcos filler arc (specifically, the Yami vs. Weevil rematch), the dub replaces Yami Yugi shouting "MONSTAH CARDO" with Creator/DanGreen's glorious poison-tipped snark. ([[LargeHam "THIS JUST ISN'T YOUR DAY!!!"]])
* There's also Shizuka whose name was translated as "Serenity" in America. Not sure how Honda became "Tristan" and Anzu became "Tea" though...

* Bakura from ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' also uses a polite speech pattern. The dub gave him a [[FakeBrit British accent]]. The creator of WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries, who is actually British, had a ''lot'' of fun with this, to the point where Bakura became the abridged series's BreakoutCharacter.
** By contrast, the dub took Jonouchi's ruder speech pattern and gave Joey Wheeler a Brooklyn accent. The Abridged Series ran with this as well, making Joey the TropeNamer for BrooklynRage.

* In Season 2, Marik wants to kill Dark Yugi and doesn't care about the Millennium Puzzle, while in the dub he wants to take the Millennium Puzzle from him and is only allowed to do so by beating him in a duel, by the laws of Ancient Egypt. This gave a convenient HandWave to the WhyDontYaJustShootHim? problem Marik has, he can't just kill Dark Yugi/banish him to the Shadow Realm, he has to beat him in a duel first, ''then'' he'll kill/banish him. Additionally with the Shadow Realm, Marik's plans to kill Dark Yugi were rather foolish in the original Japanese since Dark Yugi is an ancient spirit inhabiting the Millennium Puzzle, you effectively can't kill him by chopping off his legs or drowning him, you'll just kill his host. In the dub, Marik plans to send Dark Yugi to the Shadow Realm, so 4Kids made his death traps magical in nature and thus they pose a danger to him.
** As a side-effect, when Marik had Yami Yugi duel the possessed Joey, [=4Kids=] did ''not'' censor the idea that the loser will be dragged into the sea chained to an anchor, or that if Yami Yugi refuses to duel Marik's minion will drop a crate from a crane onto Téa. So by making Marik's death traps magical, the one trap he used where it was obvious the loser would die had a more powerful impact and thus higher stakes. While being banished to the Shadow Realm certainly is nightmarish, it is still reversible, a chance to escape. Death though, is final.
*** It even adds a layer of FridgeBrilliance to him: being the only non-magical trap, it's the one who doesn't threaten the Pharaoh, and it's also the one when he's not dueling a minion of Marik, but one of his friends, adding a lot of of psychological pressure that could make the Pharaoh more willing to lose.

* The Shadow Realm, as a concept, was actually largely created by ''4Kids'' for the dub (so they can NeverSayDie as much as they can get away with). For a number of people, the idea of your body and soul being sent straight to the verse's equivalent to Hell, as opposed to simply dying, is much more terrifying. This especially works during the championship duel against Pegasus, where Yami warns an increasingly exhausted Yugi that if he keeps on fighting, "your soul will be shredded!" The Japanese version did imply that Shadow Games were fought in another dimension, and later used the concept of a "World of Darkness" in the final season of ''GX''.

* The Shadow Realm, as a concept, was actually created by ''4Kids'' for the dub (so they can NeverSayDie as much as they can get away with). For a number of people, the idea of your body and soul being sent straight to the verse's equivalent to Hell, as opposed to simply dying, is much more terrifying. This especially works during the championship duel against Pegasus, where Yami warns an increasingly exhausted Yugi that if he keeps on fighting, "your soul will be shredded!"

*** It even adds a layer of FridgeBrilliance to him: being the only non-magical trap, it's the one who doesn't treathen the Pharao, and it's also the one when he's not dueling a minion of Marik, but one of his friends, adding a lot of of psychological pressure that could make the Pharao more willing to lose.

* During the Noah arc (where we see more of Seto and Mokuba's childhood), Seto challenged Gozaburo Kaiba to a game of chess and cheats to win, proving himself to be a clever boy to Gozaburo. While it actually ''is'' possible to cheat at chess (perform an illegal move or swapping pieces around without being caught), the dub changes this to Seto having studied Gozaburo's strategies and teaching himself how to counter them, proving his intelligence in a much more impressive (and fair) manner. Also adds some FridgeBrilliance as doing that sort of research to effectively beat someone and use their plans against them would be just the sort of strategies that a businessman like Gozaburo would approve and definitely seek out in an heir.

* During the filler season, the dubbing and 4Kids famous NeverSayDie policies probably had the unintended consequence of making Raphael ''continue'' to think HumansAreTheRealMonsters. In the original version, Dartz drove the cruise ship he was on with his family into a tidal wave and only he survived, lived on an island for awhile, then after he was rescued, decided HumansAreTheRealMonsters for no discernible reason. In the dub, however, Dartz drove the ship into a tidal wave, he was washed onto an island, then came back and his family supposedly ''forgot about him''. Just about ''anyone'' would MaddenIntoMisanthropy if your own family "moved on" and didn't seem to accept you even when you came back after ''xx'' years...