Woolseyism / Yu-Gi-Oh!

For all the faults the 4Kids dub had, there were more than a few changes that even detractors felt were improvements over the original Japanese version.

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In General

Characters

• Bakura uses a polite speech pattern in the original Japanese. The dub gave him a British accent. The creator of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, who is actually British, had a lot of fun with this, to the point where Bakura became the abridged series's Breakout Character. 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 Trope Namer for Brooklyn Rage.
• Many jokes of the original version, which relied heavily on Japanese puns and cultural references, were changed fittingly for the dub, especially in the first season. One of the more famous examples concerned the brothers Mei and Kyuu (Meikyuu = Maze), who were changed to Para and Dox (Paradox).
• Pegasus's Dub Name Change 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's a Man of Wealth and Taste. Further cementing it as a Woolseyism, this was one of the few name changes that stuck for the English manga translation.
• Some 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 and the teasing that they give him is almost as bad as the teasing Kaiba gives him, which makes the treatment that Joey gets from his friends very needlessly mean-spirited. This is especially noticeable during the Duelist Kingdom arc in the dub where even though they still teased him occasionally, they were still very supportive of Joey and believed in his abilities, which is also closer to how the manga portrays the support Joey gets, whereas the original version of the anime has Joey being belittled by his friends practically all the way through.
• In the dub, Yami Yugi's internal monologue while dueling is in little 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, or the entire second half of the Orichalcos arc).
• The dub makes Kaiba more of a Jerkass who refuses to believe in anything mystical, renouncing it all as "fairy tales". This adds to his dynamic with Yami Yugi, who tries to convince Kaiba he should learn 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.
  • Kaiba has a special disdain for Joey, who even gets dissed by his friends in the original. They are changed to be much more encouraging in the dub, so Kaiba's bullying stands out more. This makes a special, sometimes hilarious relationship between them that makes Joey seem plucky and less of a loser.

Story Elements

• The biggest change is the Shadow Realm, which despite its prominence was actually invented for the dub and didn't exist in the original anime or manga. In an attempt to Bowdlerize threats of violence and death, 4kids changed many of these moments into the victim being "sent to the Shadow Realm." Similarly, Shadow Games in the original take place in an unnamed alternate dimension, with the loser subject either to death or some other magical punishment. In the dub, these were all combined into the "Shadow Realm." This also came with the explanation that defeating someone who had sent souls to the Shadow Realm previously would release those souls, which made it easier to swallow when those "dead" characters came back to life after the season's Big Bad was defeated. This has the additional benefit of turning Yugi's duel against a mind-controlled Joey (the one duel in the first series where the threat of death is not Bowdlerized ^note They probably got away with this because it ended in a draw.) into an even more shocking moment than it would otherwise have been.
• "The Heart of the Cards" was something made up for the English dub, explaining that a duelist can draw the right card in a tight spot by believing in their deck and themselves, and their cards will respond to that. This ended up fitting perfectly with future spin-offs that do examine the bonds between a duelist and their cards, and confirm that a duelist's deck actually can respond to their wishes and grant them the card they need. 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.
  • As a side-effect, "The Heart of the Cards" gave greater meaning to the Pharoah and Kaiba's connection to the two Dark Magicians and Blue-Eyes White Dragon, respectively. In the last arc of the show, it's revealed that Mahad reincarnates as the spirit of the Dark Magician, Mana was his apprentice (and childhood friend of the Pharoah) and would summon the Dark Magician Girl after his death, while Kisara held the soul of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and protected High Priest Seto with her life. In the original, this is merely symbolic, but in the dub it's far more of a bond that transcends time itself.
• The dub changed the creation of the Millennium Artifacts from 3,000 years to 5,000 years before. 3,000 years ago places the timeframe of Pharaoh Atem's reign in the "New Kingdom" period of Ancient Egyptian history, which while fine (and lining up with Atem being a stand-in for King Tutankhamun), can be a bit head-scratching that the significance of the Millennium Items and Duel Monsters went unnoticed by modern scholars. Shifting it to 5,000 years ago puts Atem's reign during the Early Dynastic Period. This not only makes it more plausible that the Millennium Items and Duel Monsters could be overlooked since records of an older era would be more scarce in the modern era, but the Early Dynastic Period is so referred to because it was the first time that Egypt was ruled by a pharaoh as a unified country, allowing the idea that Atem's father unified the country using the power of the Millennium Items and Atem then sealed them away and they were lost to history as a Dark Secret of Egyptian culture.

Season-Specific

Season 1

• During his duel with Yugi in episode two, in the dub Pegasus talks about the Egyptian origins of Duel Monsters, including the Shadow Games and the Millennium Items. This probably intrigues Yami Yugi and helps motivate him to confront Pegasus to learn more about his past and his powers, and also provides a convenient Info Dump to set up backstory. In the original, Pegasus is just delivering exposition about the tournament Yugi is invited to, which is repeated two episodes later anyway, and the information about the Millennium Items and Ancient Egypt was given more gradually over the course of the first and second seasons.
• The anime's take on Yugi's encounter with Ushio omits Yami Yugi beating Ushio in a shadow game and only covers the part where Yugi tries to keep him from beating Jonouchi and Honda up. As his fate is never mentioned, it ends up unintentionally implying Ushio went on to be a Karma Houdini. The dub adds in a few lines where Joey reveals that Ushio was expelled for his actions, showing that he still ended up facing some sort of punishment.
• A case of Frothy Mugs of Water also managed to make sense as well — Pegasus is shown to eat cheese and drink wine while watching a cartoon, but 4kids changed it to cheese and "fruit juice". But given Pegasus' characterization as an eccentric and flamboyant Manchild (this is a wealthy businessman who watches cartoons, after all), drinking fruit punch out of a fancy wineglass is 100% in-character for him. Averted in The Movie in which Pegasus drinks wine spritzers.
• In episode 16, Kaiba rudely dismisses Yugi's invitation to join his group and says he will go directly to Pegasus' castle to rescue Mokuba, causing Joey to be pissed and challenge him to a duel. In the Japanese version, Joey is pissed that Kaiba is trying to enter the castle without joining the tournament and collecting Star Chips. (In the manga, he was furious over Death-T, which had to be changed since that was Adapted Out of the anime.) In the dub, Joey is pissed at Kaiba's rudeness, which makes Joey look less self-centered and less Skewed Priorities.
• 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, with the changes making their gimmick considerably more interesting.
• During the Yugi vs. Kaiba match with Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, when Celtic Guardian is about to deliver the finishing blow to the rotting Blue-Eyes, Yugi Muto takes control from Yami Yugi and Celtic Guardian magically stops. In the English dub, Yugi yells, "STOP!" before Celtic Guardian's attack connects, which makes more sense than in the original and further confirms that Yugi is back in control.
• During Yugi's duel with Mai in the original version, Yugi's mind was only focused on dueling Pegasus, causing him to become cocky and not take Mai seriously. In the dub, Yugi is holding back Yami because he's still traumatized by Yami nearly killing Kaiba in the last duel and isn't sure he can trust the spirit. The dub also foreshadows the fate of Pegasus's wife by having him give an internal monologue about it. In the original version it was a filler conversation between Yugi's friends and Bakura.
  • In addition, the dub adds a line where Yami vows to never again defy Yugi's wishes. This makes it even sadder in season 4 when Yami plays the Seal of Orichalcos, ignoring Yugi pleading with him to not do so. It shows just how consumed he is by his own pride and refusal to lose.
    Yami: Now let me go, Yugi!
    Yugi: (softly) Please...don't play that card.
  • This Evil Me Scares Me plot also coincidentally creates an excellent parallel between Yugi and his successor Jaden Yuki, who goes through the same thing (but much longer and more traumatic) when he discovers his Supreme King alter ego.
• 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 in which he already has access to hologram technology that's just as good as Kaiba Corp's. 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.

Season 2

• Similar to Pegasus' goal, there's Marik's reason for dueling Yugi. In the original, Marik simply wants to kill Yugi, which really doesn't explain his convoluted plans that center around a children's card game when he could simply find a gun and shoot Yugi. In the dub, Marik wants the power within the Millennium Puzzle, which by the laws of magic requires him (or a mind-controlled minion) to defeat Yugi in a duel.
• Yugi's duel with Bandit Keith (which is not in the manga; it's an extremely loose adaptation of the last chunk of the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc, which the anime split off into almost-pure Filler) has Marik brainwash Keith into stealing the Millennium Puzzle and hold the duel, 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 Voodoo Shark 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."
• In the duel where Yami Yugi battles a Rare Hunter with all five pieces of Exodia the Forbidden One, his Exodia cards are all fakes in the original, while in the dub they're real cards marked with invisible ink so that he can scan them with special contact lenses to see when he's about to draw a piece. This patches up a later plot hole where it is stated that fake cards won't work in KaibaCorp duel disks anyway. Also, this change is more in-line with the manga, as the Rare Hunter used real cards marked with invisible ink instead of fake cards in his duel against Yami Yugi.
• Though the duel with Lumis and Umbra may have been a very thin case of Bowdlerization and it was really obvious that the "Shadow Realm vortex" was simply glass that would shatter and cause the losers to fall to their doom, this does help to patch up one Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, and it works because Umbra's parachute got caught on the way down. You could make the argument that he was "saved" from the Shadow Realm by that fortunate event (and since he passes out and he and Lumis are never seen again after this, even that is debatable.) As for Lumis, back at the duel, Mask of Dispel was still on Yugi's side of the field while he (Yugi) was down to 500 LP. Had Lumis simply passed, Yugi would automatically lose the Duel during his Standby Phase thanks to Mask of Dispel's ability. (This wasn't an issue in the manga, as the Mask card did 300 LP of Burn damage and Yugi had 1100 LP left.) In the Japanese version, there's no explanation for why Lumis didn't simply pass, let Yugi fall to his doom, take an attack from Kaiba's Obelisk, then parachute down and steal Slifer the Sky Dragon off Yugi's corpse. With the ceiling now being a "Shadow Realm vortex", you can make the argument that Lumis surrendered because once Kaiba attacked him, he'd become a soulless zombie.
• Some argue that the change of Mako's father being dead to possbily surviving thanks to a missing lifeboat, actually adds more weight to Mako's misplay to ressurrect The Legendary Fisherman, a card which resembles his father, from the graveyard instead of the more powerful Fortress Whale. Since it represents that Mako is in denial over his father's death and that letting The Legendary Fisherman stay in the graveyard represents him admitting that his father is truly dead.

Season 3

• When Noah defeats Kaiba in a duel through dishonest means. In the original Yami calls Noah out by stating that with Last Turn Kaiba could have at least ended the duel in a draw if he used Different Dimension Dragon instead of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which he summoned through tributing the former in order to save Mokuba. The dub has Yami call Noah out on using Mokuba as a Human Shield and outright stating that Kaiba is true winner of the duel, which is completely true since said foul play is what prevented Kaiba from dealing the final blow to Noah. This makes Yami statement against Noah more powerful and logical than the original. To further the point home, a part of Yami's statement was Noah's hypocrisy over resorting to this cheap method to win, when he (Noah) had called out The Big Five twice for breaking his (Noah's) agreements, as well as Johnson for cheating in his duel against Joey.
• Noah had no idea Gozaburo was alive and inside the Virtual World in the original, which made no sense given how long he's been there and how much control he has over it. In the dub, Noah was always working for Gozaburo, rather than it being a Hijacked by Ganon situation.
• When Joey ends up in a coma due to Yami Marik's Shadow Game. He dreams of participating in a tournament using Duelist Kingdom rules. However, while the original states this tournament happened in reality before Duelist Kingdom. The dub does not state that at all and implies this tournament never happened. This works better since in the last duel of the tournament, Joey used Shield & Sword, a card he explicitly gained when trading cards on the boat to Duelist Kingdom thus causing a rather glaring Continuity Snarl, which the dub managed to remove.

Season 4

• 4Kids' infamous Never Say "Die" policies actually benefitted Raphael's backstory since it gave him a more plausible reason to think Humans Are the Real Monsters. 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 Humans Are the Real Monsters 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 found out his family supposedly forgot about him. Just about anyone would Madden Into Misanthropy if your own family "moved on" and didn't seem to accept you even when you came back after xx years...
• After Yugi's soul is taken by the Orichalcos, the original Japanese has Yami crying out "Aibou! Aibou!" ("Aibou" means "Partner", what Yami has been calling Yugi.) The English dub changes this so that Yami is owning up to the fact that it's his fault for activating the Seal in the first place.
  Yami: It's All My Fault! Yugi, come back! (slams his fists on the ground) It should have been me, not him! It's not fair!
• During Yami and Weevil's duel, there's a moment where Yami, Weevil and Tea have to duck under a hanging rock formation as the train passes under it. In the original, they do this silently, but in the dub, Yami tells Weevil to look out and Weevil sarcastically thanks him for the warning, adding a funny moment to what was originally dead air.
• In the Orichalcos Arc, the dub had Dartz be responsible for the Knights' transformation into the Legendary Dragons. This is significantly more of an explanation than the original gave, where Dartz didn't even know about their "true form". It makes the Legend of Heart summon look even more poignant as Dartz has a minor Villainous Breakdown over the three heroes he locked away thousands of years ago escaping just as he was about to achieve his triumph.

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