Rating: 
Summary: Something's Missing Here....
Review: While some anime makes it to America relatively unscathed, that is not true in Yu-Gi-Oh's case. To correct someone elses review, there were not two seperate Yu-Gi-Oh series created, though the first episodes had a somewhat different flavor. Kazuki Takahashi originally didn't even intend the series to be about cards, so the first hunk of the series doesn't include them. The American dub is simply missing quite a few episodes, particularly the early ones. The American version seems to have been redesigned simply to plug the card game.While the content is more extreme, the original was still meant for all ages, Japan simply has different standards. They, for the most part, are less sensitive about this sort of content. I find our paranoia rather silly: Yu-Gi-Oh is popular in Japan also, and I don't here about their kids going on Yu-Gi-Oh induced drinking binges and killing sprees (ok, so I'm exaggerating, but you get the point). What saddens me most is the loss of the beautiful voice acting. In Japan, voice actors have as much fame and respect as regular actors, and their work is very high quality. The woman who voices both Yugi and Yami Yugi is a personal favorite, Ogata Megumi. She did a beautiful job portraying Yugi's two personalities. The voices for the American version are simply the standard hero voices you here in any cartoon. This dub is mostly suitable for young children who won't be able to keep up with subtitles or understand Japanese. If you are older, however, find a copy of the original. It's worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: Something's Missing Here....
Review: While some anime makes it to America relatively unscathed, that is not true in Yu-Gi-Oh's case. To correct someone elses review, there were not two seperate Yu-Gi-Oh series created, though the first episodes had a somewhat different flavor. Kazuki Takahashi originally didn't even intend the series to be about cards, so the first hunk of the series doesn't include them. The American dub is simply missing quite a few episodes, particularly the early ones. The American version seems to have been redesigned simply to plug the card game. While the content is more extreme, the original was still meant for all ages, Japan simply has different standards. They, for the most part, are less sensitive about this sort of content. I find our paranoia rather silly: Yu-Gi-Oh is popular in Japan also, and I don't here about their kids going on Yu-Gi-Oh induced drinking binges and killing sprees (ok, so I'm exaggerating, but you get the point). What saddens me most is the loss of the beautiful voice acting. In Japan, voice actors have as much fame and respect as regular actors, and their work is very high quality. The woman who voices both Yugi and Yami Yugi is a personal favorite, Ogata Megumi. She did a beautiful job portraying Yugi's two personalities. The voices for the American version are simply the standard hero voices you here in any cartoon. This dub is mostly suitable for young children who won't be able to keep up with subtitles or understand Japanese. If you are older, however, find a copy of the original. It's worth the effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Anime purists can say what they want. This is great stuff!!
Review: Yu-Gi-Oh! is one of those anime that, once you get into it, you can't get yourself out of its grasp. This DVD will prove it from the get-go. Yu-Gi-Oh! got started first in 1996 with the manga (comics series), then an initial TV series (which YGO fans dub 'Season 0") which flopped. Once the Duel Monsters concept was thrown into the story, Yu-Gi-Oh! took off like a rocket! The sales numbers out of Japan speak for themselves. Finally now, Yu-Gi-Oh! fever has hit the U.S. of A. and it's clearly evident. The TV series took awhile to gain the upper hand over its competition, but KidsWB seemed to know what they were doing, and after a silght timeslot change on Saturday AM, adding a 2nd showing there, and adding the 5-day-a-week showings, it's become a ratings killer, smashing records previously set by Pokemon, and beating out the competition! The CCG is selling out to the point where it's somtimes impossible to find unless you live in a real huge city with a lot of shops, and just recently, a CD soundtrack ("Yu-Gi-Oh!: Music to Duel By") has been released. Search this site out for it and snatch that up too, it's good listening. Anyways, this DVD is a good introduction to this now highly popular anime. The first episode I'd already deem a 'classic'...the first of many confrontations between Kaiba (Seto) and Yugi, armed with the ever-powerful EXODIA in his deck! Ep 2 gives us a Duel between Yugi and Pegasus, and Ep 3, the group of friends: Yugi, Joey, Tristan, & Téa, set off for Duelist Kingdom. The video is probably best veiwed on a hi-definition TV (HDTV) although it still looks fine on normal TVs. (Of course everyone's eyes are different, so, maybe it just looked fuzzy / grainy to my eyes on my TV). The sound is mostly to the center, although the music is digitally recorded in surround-stereo. There's 2 flavors to choose from as far as language goes: English and Spanish. There's also a quick music video here, as well as some monster and character profiles. The dub (English) is great...certainly one of 4Kids' great accomplishments, and they should be proud of their work. Many anime 'purists' are not going to like the fact that there's no Japanese track here (then again, it seems most of them are against dubs in general). I don't mind this at all though, since I've been, as I stated at the start of this review, a casual anime viewer for over 6 years and I'd find the dub more comfortable to sit through. As a previous reviewer here has stated (and I have learned from fans who've seen the Japanese version episodes), that the Japanese variant of Yu-Gi-Oh! is just way too dark, way too controversial for the rest of the world to grasp. After finding out all that I have about Yu-Gi-Oh! in its original format, I'd still probably stick with the English adaption. With all this said, this DVD's worth it. However...there is one minor gripe here that I have. You only get 3 eps. I"ve delved deep into how DVD technology works, and....you could easily get 5-6 eps on a single-layer DVD. That's my only gripe, and unfortunately, I suppose it's the company's way of doing things, and nothing can change that. Other popular anime like DBZ are like this too, and look what's happened to that...its up to Vol 90 for what its worth...go figure! Looks like Yu-Gi-Oh! will be around for some time to come. Get into it while the getting's good!
Rating:
Summary: It feels like a broken record...
Review: Yu-Gi-Oh, as most everybody knows, is an anime shown on the KidsWB recently and has become a smash hit. However, whenever I watch the show I feel like I'm listening to a broken record (hence the title). If you watch the first episode, you basically have seen the entire series. The basic layout of the show is; Yugi morphs into Yu-Gi-Oh, the entity hidden within his Millenium puzzle which is actually an egyptian pharoah who loved games. So, whenever the moment arises, Yugi jumps into action, the entity takes control, and they win the cheesy battly in an episode or two. If you really want to know how it really started, you should subscribe to the new american Shonen Jump (which is an excellent reproduction and a good move by the Japanese publishers) which has the original Yu-Gi-Oh manga in its original format and content. I enjoy the Manga more than the series as in the manga nothing is censored and the manga starts from the BEGINNING of the storyline, not a year later. All in all, this show has been over-done, in every perspective. There isn't anything remarkable about the animation or music, and the repeating storyline is ZZZZZZ. If your a fan, go ahead buy it, you like the story, so you can remember it for all time, but if you're spmeone who is looking for a good flick, you outta pass this one up. Just go get Shonen Jump instead, it's about five times better anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: A mere shadow of its orignal version
Review: Yugioh is a perfect example of how americanizing and censoring can truly screw up as series. They show is abound with needless edits, baaad dialog, and much, much more. First, theres the voice acting. Yugi is supposed to sound like a timd, kind little kid. In the dub, he sounds like some stuck up 14 yr old loser. Dark yugi(yami yugi)'s voice sounds sooo deep and stupid, its hard to describe. Jonouchi (joey) now sounds like a dumb new yorker kid, which,belive me, does not fit his charectar. Seto kaiba sounds ok when he's acting tough and all, but as the other reviewer said, his attempts at being emotional sound way to fake. And the annoying voice acting goes perfect with the baad voice acting. Yami yugi ends up saying horrible lines like "OH NOOO! A TRAAAP CARD?", or "HEART OF THE CARDS!".
And joey's dailog is patethitic. He says stuff like "GO drumsticks", and "MY DWAGON!" (sounds exacly as its spelled). Then, theres the edits, and to tell you the truth, the 100 word limit wont allow me to even describe HALF of the edits (and there are 500 so far OMG). First, to kiddyize the whole thing, they replaced anyone dying with being sent to "the shadow relm" or some other coverup. For example:When dark ryo bakura is confronted with gaurds (which i will get to later lol), he uses a card (morphing jar) to, not kill them like in the real version, but "send them to the shadow relm". Oh yeah, and kabia's parents didnt "die", they "disappeared"...lol
And, for some reason beyond me, they paint out any form of guns. In the jap version, bandit keith threatens peaguses with a hangun.in the kids wb version, the gun is painted out so now he POINTS at him. Oooh.. scary. Another time, some idiot gaurds "pointed" at kaiba and told him to come see peaguses. And there is som much more they edited out. Editing ALL occult refrences, changing stragetys in duels, and paint over and changing the monsters/cards THEMSELVES! And did i mention that they cut out the ENTIRE first season (the "manga" version), and added new, HORRID music? i tell ya folks, this is just pathetic. Dont wast your money on this so called "Yu-Gi-Oh!"...
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