Trivia / Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL

• Acting for Two: In the original Japanese, Shouma Yamamoto voiced both Yamikawa and V. This happens quite often in the English dub, where much of the cast cover multiple roles:
  • Marc Thompson: Voices Astral, Dark Mist, Girag, Alito, Mr.Heartland and the Door.
  • Sean Schemmel: Voices Bronk Stone, Bronk's Mother, Orbital 7, Kaze, and Kazuma Tsukumo.
  • Billy Bob Thompson: Voices two of the Barian Emperors - Vector and Misael/Mizar.
  • Michael Smith: Voices both Quattro and Vetrix, where the two argue a lot in the show.
• Amateur Cast: At the time of ZEXAL's premier, Tasuku Hatanaka was a newcomer to voice acting, with Yuma Tsukumo being his debut and first major role. He would eventually go on to make a name for himself in the voice acting industry.
• Anime First: Unlike GX and 5D's, this is averted for this series, as the manga made it out before the anime.
• Casting Gag: The dueling criminals Scorch and Chills who force the heroes into their first ever Tag Duel were voiced by Eric Stuart and Sam Riegal respectively who as of GX onwards are the current voices of the Paradox Brothers.
• Defictionalization: Orbital 7, Lillybot, and Cologne all have their own cards.
• Distanced from Current Events: Shark's Poseidon Wave card was changed to Zeus Breath following the Sendai Earthquake.
• Dueling Shows: With Cardfight!! Vanguard, which started airing earlier the same year.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Not for the English dub, but for the Japanese version. It's the first Yu-Gi-Oh! Series to never see any release of its original Japanese version on Crunchyroll and VRV, unusual given Zexal's popularity in Japan.
• Meme Acknowledgement: After Kamen Rider Saber got the name “Ryouga Shindai” (an Alternative Character Reading of Ryouga Kamishiro) trending, both Toshiki Masuda and Megumi Han commented on the sudden uptick in attention on Twitter.
• Schedule Slip: Dub only- reruns begin after Episode 8.
• Shrug of God: The director of ZEXAL repeatedly dodges questions on just about everything.
• Star-Making Role: Yuma Tsukumo was Tasuku Hatanaka's first major voice acting role.
• Studio Hop: Due to 4Kids Entertainment's litigation with TV Tokyo and NAS and its subsequent bankruptcy, this would be the last Yu-Gi-Oh! season in which 4Kids would be involved in, as Konami took over for ZEXAL II.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An alternate dub was created by ADK. Watch an excerpt here (warning, the audio is out of sync)
  • ADK created this dub when the rights to ZEXAL were in jeopardy, against the court's warnings. ADK took 26 episodes and gave it a huge makeover, with a new soundtrack composed to picture, reanimating some sequences, and getting big-name voice actors such as Johnny Yong Bosch as Yuma, Cassandra Lee Morris as Tori, Sam Riegel as Kite, and Vic Mignogna as Shark. The new dub even kept in Yuma's kattobingu catchphrase. It's very unlikely that these episodes will ever see the light of day since ADK failed to secure the rights for ZEXAL in the United States.
  • Kyoji Yagumo was initally supposed to be the Final Boss in the manga, but E'Rah was created after the artist got tired of drawing Yagumo.
  • There's a cut plotline involving a character named Alco, who was meant to duel Kaito for a card known as "The Closed Eight". Alco is know as The Barian Observer, and is not affiliated with the other Seven Emperors. The next episode would have Kaito try to pass the card to Yuma, only to be intercepted by Mizael much like in canon. There's no info on what "The Closed Eight" is, what it was supposed to do, or what Alco's reasoning for his actions are. Presumably, he and the card were cut so as to streamline the plots regarding Kaito and Mizael's rivalry and the birth of the 100th number.
  • Deleted summaries for episodes 121-125 indicate that Vector would have originally bested Shark in their flashback duel, causing Shark to challenge Vector in the present. This would awaken Shark's Barian powers earlier than in canon, and eventually led to a situation where Yuma was separated from Astral again.

---