Yu-Gi-Oh Episode 3 Sub/Dub Comparison

This is the face of someone trustworthy.

Plot: Yugi accepts Pegasus’ invitation to Duelist Kingdom in order to recover his grandfather’s soul. Yugi helps Jonouchi get aboard the ship heading for the tournament by giving him one of his star chips, while Anzu and Honda sneak onboard.

While aboard, they meet some of their future opponents; Insect Haga, Dinosaur Ryuzaki and Mai Kujaku. Haga gets his hands on the Exodia cards and throws them overboard to ensure that they can never be used against him. Jonouchi jumps into the waters below to recover the cards but can only retrieve two before needing rescue. After being rescued by Anzu, Honda and Yugi, Jonouchi tells them of his sister’s medical troubles, which is why he desperately needs the prize money from the tournament.

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In the original, as Yugi’s on the school roof, he sees Pegasus’s face overlaid on the sunset as he thinks about his Millennium Eye and how he could see his cards. In the dub, Pegasus has been replaced by Yugi’s grandpa and he’s worrying about his grandpa instead.

Subbed:

 

Dubbed:

Entire Show Edit: All flashbacks now have fuzzy white borders, common of all 4Kids productions.

A running ‘proverb’ so to speak throughout the show is ‘that which can be seen, yet not seen,’ the true shape of the Millennium Puzzle before finishing it, friendship etc. The dub completely omits this.

In the original, a bigger bully named Ushio sorta hired himself as Yugi’s bodyguard to take care of Jonouchi and Honda for him, since they were bullying him, for a lump sum. In the dub version, he’s unnamed, and Ushio makes no mention of any bodyguard deal. Also they add that they got Ushio expelled.

Mai in the original version basically ignores Jonouchi entirely upon their first meeting. In the dub she’s very mean to him for no reason. I guess this is to prod the JoeyxMai relationship in a weird way?

Directly after that scene, Anzu is upset that Yugi and Jonouchi are lusting after Mai and calls them perverts. In the dub, T’ea is upset because Mai’s so arrogant and keeps babbling that Yugi’s the best duelist. I guess this is to prod YugixT’ea?

Name Change: Mai Kujaku is changed to Mai Valentine.

Am I the only one who finds it incredibly arrogant that Joey/Jonouchi barely makes it onto to boat only through Yugi’s kindness and he has the nerve to bitch that he doesn’t get a private room? He does this in both versions, by the way.

When Anzu gets up, she’s looking for a toilet and Honda tells her to go pee off the side of the ship. This was probably seen as crass humor by 4Kids, so they changed it to T’ea being cold (so warm yourself up by getting closer to the freezing cold ocean in the freezing cold open air.) and then Tristan tells her the sun will rise in another few hours and she gets pissed. (I know it’s stupid, but he probably meant the sunlight will warm her up in a few hours.) Afterward, before the transition, Anzu actually says she’s cold and shivers, but 4Kids cut this….WHY? That scene actually lends credence to your edit, you morons!

Mai in the original version says she’ll do anything (wink wink) if Ryuzaki wins. 4Kids has their head in the gutter, so they changed it to simply a kiss.

I don’t entirely understand Mai’s perfume trick. First of all, Rex/Ryuzaki can’t smell that her cards are drenched in perfume? He’s almost as close to them as she is. Second, all of those smells would meld together when on top of each other in a deck. How could she tell them apart enough to know which is where?

Obviously the card “Cyber Bondage” with the giant needle nipples needed to be censored to ‘Cyber Shield’ and the needle nipples went poof. See your doctor if the same happens to you.

Subbed: 

Dubbed:

It’s pointless, really, but at the end of the Japanese version, before the preview, they overlay a rather intimidating picture of Yami for some reason. In the dub, his face has been removed and the shot only focuses on the sun rising.

This episode was decent, but nothing really happened outside of Yugi losing Exodia. Not like it matters that much, I doubt it’d be allowed in the tournament since its use is banned most everywhere, but he did need to lose it technically to avoid getting more instant wins. Other than that, it was a neat little intro to a few of the tournament competitors and not much else.

Next episode, Yugi challenges Insect Haga to a duel as revenge for Exodia. Can he beat the master of insects?

…Previous Episode

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Yu-Gi-Oh Episode 1 Sub/Dub Comparison

Permanent marker smiley faces create a bond that not even the forces of darkness can break!…..Literally..But that’s later.

Plot: Yugi and his friends love playing the card game Duel Monsters, but when the world champ, Seto Kaiba, overhears that Yugi’s grandpa has a super rare card at his game shop, he believes it to be the card he’s been searching for for ages. When he arrives, lo and behold, it’s the Blue Eyes White Dragon he’s been looking for. However, Yugi’s grandpa, Solomon, won’t sell it or trade for it because it’s so precious to him.

Kaiba later kidnaps Yugi’s grandpa (because logical reactions) and duels him for the card. Solomon falls ill after losing to Kaiba, and Yugi goes to save him. Kaiba rips up the Blue-Eyes to prevent it from ever being used against him since Kaiba already has three Blue Eyes, and Duel Monsters’ decks can only have three copies of one card in a deck. He challenges Yugi to a duel as his grandpa goes to the hospital. Yugi struggles with Kaiba for a long time, believing he’ll lose. Will one card be the difference between triumph and defeat?

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I don’t completely understand Kaiba’s reasoning for kidnapping Yugi’s grandpa. I know he wanted the Blue Eyes, but why did he want it so badly?

1) It’s pretty clear his Grandpa was never going to sell it to anyone or trade it.

2) He also didn’t show a desire to use it in a duel.

3) Even if it was ever used against him, he has three Blue-Eyes – he has a huge advantage. In addition, tearing up a card doesn’t mean it can’t be used in anymore duels. I mean, maybe in duels using the holograms (because the system probably couldn’t ‘read’ the card that way) but it’s still usable. If you wanted it gone so badly, you should’ve burned it.

4) Why destroy it anyway? Free backup Blue-Eyes in case anything happens to the three he has.

Why does Joey mention that Yugi has the Millennium Puzzle when he’s listing off reasons as to why he can win? He doesn’t know at this point that that thing has magical powers to help him win duels, so basically he’s saying “Hey Yugi, you can win this card game because you have a giant necklace!” In the original version he just talks about how Yugi helped change him from a fight-loving thug.

In order to make it a surprise that Kaiba has the other three Blue-Eyes, they omit the part of Kaiba’s speech before the duel where he mentions that a deck can only have three copies of the same card, and he destroyed the fourth because he couldn’t use it and didn’t want it used against him.

This season is well-known for the utmost disregard of the rules of the game. In the Yu-Gi-Oh game, each player starts out with 8000 life points. What you can summon depends on how many stars the monster has. If a monster has four stars or below, it can instantly be summoned. If it has five to six stars, it requires one monster to be sacrificed from the field. If a monster has seven or more stars, it requires two sacrifices. In this season, incredibly powerful monsters can be summoned from the start and each duel requires only 2000 life points on each player. You’d think this would make duels go faster…..Silly you! :3

To be honest, though, I like this season. Sure the rules are used as toilet paper and a lot of the moves make no sense, but that makes duels kinda exciting and more fun.

You also hardly ever see direct attacks in this season. In the game, if you have no monsters on the field but your opponent does, they can attack your life points directly causing damage equal to the number of attack points a monster has.

Take the duel in this episode for example. Surely Kaiba has other monsters that he can summon from his hand when Saggi is on the field. If he did, Yugi’s one monster per turn defense would fail, and he’d win in a matter of a couple of turns, yet he doesn’t. In addition, it doesn’t seem to matter if you have more than one monster out. If your opponent has one defense monster, I guess you’re barred from using the other monster to attack.

Kaiba states that the Swords of Revealing Light card only affects monsters that are currently on the field during activation. A new monster won’t be under the same spell. This is entirely wrong – new monsters are just as affected by Swords as the others.

Subbed, dubbed, that friendship marker smiley face thing is still insanely cheesy.

Exodia comes out of a pentagram in the original. They added more lines in the dubbed version to avoid controversy, though it makes more sense to use the regular star design since it has five points and Exodia uses five cards/parts….Also, technically, that’s far from a Satanic pentagram, but whatever.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Name Changes: I honestly don’t understand why they chose to change only some of their names. 4Kids changes names a lot in order to Americanize their shows, but only a handful are changed in Yu-Gi-Oh.

Katsuya Jonouchi is changed to Joey Wheeler, Hiroto Honda is Tristan Taylor and Anzu Mazaki is Te’a Gardner. Yugi’s last name is altered in a weird way. His last name is Muto, but it’s ‘changed’ to Moto for the dub, for some reason.

Pegasus also had a slight name change. In the original, he’s Pegasus J. Crawford. In the dub he’s Maximillion Pegasus. This is yet another name change I just don’t get. Why change it so that his first name is his last name? Either way, both the original and dub characters call him Pegasus. Though, I do have to say, at least the dub makes Pegasus’s parents look better. Max is a fairly normal first name and you can’t do much about your surname. His Mom and Dad must’ve hated his guts to name him Pegasus….

Entire Show Edit: The dubbed version never shows the title cards.

Entire Show Edit: The opening and ending themes have been replaced for the entire run and the next episode previews have been removed……Though, to be completely honest, I prefer the dub version’s better, at least for this season. Later seasons get better themes.

Entire Show Edit: All of the cards had to be edited for the American release to not look like the TCG cards (Trying to avoid product placement in kid’s shows and whatnot, though I could never make heads or tails of the actual rules involved with that.) Instead of showing them as they look as the real-life TCG cards, they only show the picture, color, attack and defense points. This causes a lot of confusion during the series as the characters seem to read cards several times, but there’s no text to read. It also makes you wonder how anyone knows what these cards do.

Entire Show Edit: Though Kaiba is still an asshole in the series, he’s is much more respectful in the original version. Dub!Kaiba slings insults and treats people like crap while original!Kaiba is more subtly condescending and uses honorifics.

Entire Show Edit: As typical 4Kids fashion, a lot of the music is replaced and there is hardly ever any silence.

I’ve brought this up before and I might as well do it again, dubbed Yugi never sat well with me. I can partly understand if his friends don’t realize his eyes, demeanor and height change when he duels, kinda….But Yami’s voice is so deep compared to Yugi’s in the dub that it’s completely unbelievable that they wouldn’t notice that.

In the Japanese version, Yami sounds just like Yugi only using a deeper, smoother voice. It’s a very subtle change.

Don’t get me wrong, Dan Green does an incredible job as Yami, and I commend him in his range because he does not sound like Yugi at all, but the change is too drastic for me …Also, why is it they all seem to notice when Yugi gets encompassed by light but no one bothers building on that?

Next episode, Pegasus and Yami have a showdown through a video tape. Will the tracking need to be adjusted during the duel!? Tune in and find out!

….Previous Episode

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Fruits Basket Review

Plot: Tohru Honda is an incredibly polite and kind girl. She’d never want to bother anybody or impose. That is why, when her mother died, she decided to live in a tent in the woods instead of bothering anybody for a place to stay. That is until a boy named Yuki Sohma and his cousin Shigure found her and decided to take her in.

She accidentally discovers the Sohma family secret – they have been cursed with the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Whenever they get hugged by a member of the opposite sex or if they fall under a good deal of stress, they transform into an animal of the Chinese Zodiac. Only 13 members of the family have this curse. Yes, 13. 12 of the regular zodiac plus the cat from the stories.

Usually they have a person’s memory erased when they discover the secret, but the family leader, Akito, has decided to leave her be as long as she promises to keep their secret. Now living with Shigure, Yuki and the cat Kyo under the condition that she be their housekeeper, Tohru does everything she can to help them while learning of the darker side of the curse.

Breakdown: If you want a feel-good anime with tons of comedy and touching moments, watch this show. It’s hilarious, it’s emotional, it has plenty of good life lessons and advice, and, if you’re into it, it’s technically a reverse harem. Hooray!

I love this anime with all my heart. It’s definitely one of my absolute favorites. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s without its flaws, most notably with the ending.

The last two or three episodes take a really drastic turn in mood. Kinda like how Angelic Layer was really bright and happy-go-lucky until the final two episodes. Fruits Basket has plenty of drama, some of it stemming from the Sohma family curse and some from other sources, but, for the most part, it’s a really lighthearted comedy show. The final three episodes, however, are much darker compared to the rest of the series.

The actual show ends on a light note, but not before a ton of very heavy scenes.

Now, if the change in tone doesn’t bother you, the actual ending might.

Spoilers

We end with Akito confronting Tohru. He starts assaulting her until she talks him down. She’s allowed to stay with the Sohmas despite now knowing all of their secrets and accepting Kyo for who he is.

The problems are as follows – 1) We never get a resolution to the curse. The curse never gets lifted from the family. Thus it kinda ends on a cliffhanger.

2) We never get to meet the other members of the Zodiac that are, as of now, manga exclusive. We never meet Rin (Hatsuharu’s girlfriend. She’s the horse of the Zodiac) or Kureno (The rooster of the Zodiac. However, some have speculated that the little bird that’s always around Akito is actually Kureno, but that’s debatable. Why would Kureno be transformed all the time? What would trigger the transformation anyway? And, even if it was, we still never get to meet the actual character.)

I’m really not one to harp on differences between manga and anime. Even if I prefer one medium’s version over another, I realize that some stuff has to be changed because of the shift in medium. However, completely cutting two major characters and leaving us hanging, even if there is a slight resolution with hope for the future, just seems like a bit of a rip off.

Another moderate issue is the fact that Akito got a gender change for the anime. In the manga, Akito’s a woman who is forced to grow up and act like a man so that she can be the head of the family. In the anime, Akito’s a guy.

I’d really like to see a season two of the show where we get to continue on alongside the manga, maybe a semi-short OVA, but I doubt that’d ever happen….Well, Inuyasha eventually continued so maybe there is hope.

END OF SPOILERS

Let’s run through the characters before hitting the bottom line.

Tohru Honda: Tohru is an incredibly nice and caring girl who never does anything in her own interests (Even to the point of making herself so stressed that she makes herself sick several times). However, this makes her a tiny bit annoying as she’s pretty much a doormat. She never sticks up for herself and never gets angry. Ever. This is why I dislike her pairing with Kyo. He may get nicer as he goes along with Tohru, but Kyo still yells around and at her constantly, and he’s even physically hurt her on occasion. Not on purpose, of course, but still. She never defends herself, so it really seems like a slightly abusive relationship.

Still, I love Tohru, and I always wished I could know someone like her in real life.

Yuki Sohma: The rat of the Zodiac, Yuki is incredibly smart, kind and gentle. Because of this, he is loved by all of the student body at his school and is hailed as “Prince Yuki.” He even has his own fanclub called the Prince Yuki Fanclub. I really like Yuki even if he seems somewhat blunt sometimes. I much prefer pairing him with Tohru over Kyo, but that’s just my opinion.

Shigure Sohma: The dog of the Zodiac, Shigure is a published author who’s as goofy as he is perverted. I adore Shigure. He’s such a fun character, and he’s another one of those characters that you’d love to know if they actually existed.

Kyo Sohma: The cat of the Zodiac, Kyo gets treated like crap in the family (but at least better than the previous cat who was basically imprisoned) because the cat is seen as the outcast in the Zodiac and not even an official member. Because of this, Kyo’s a bit of a defensive jerk.

He’s loud, mean and rude, but can be nice when he actually tries. He has a long standing rivalry against Yuki. It seems like he hates him, but he’s actually fairly jealous of him and vice versa.

Kagura Sohma: The boar of the Zodiac, Kagura is deeply in love with Kyo and wants nothing more than to marry him as he ‘promised’ when they were younger. She seems to have two sides to her. One that is incredibly shy and kind and another that is basically like a rampaging boar. I really liked Kagura and would prefer her with Kyo over Tohru. At least Kagura would be able to deal with him if he went off the rails.

Momiji Sohma: The rabbit of the Zodiac, Momiji is an energetic and spirited boy who gets excited over practically anything. Despite his child-like appearance, he’s actually 15 years old. Momiji actually has one of the sadder pasts in the series, but that doesn’t stop him from making the most out of his life. I really love Momiji even if he does tend to be a little too much sometimes.

Hatori Sohma: The dragon of the Zodiac, Hatori actually turns into a seahorse when he transforms (this is because a seahorse is called the dragon of the sea) Hatori is seen as evidence that the curse is slowly fading because he doesn’t turn into an actual dragon (I guess that means that the dragons before him were actual dragons. That must’ve been a lot more awkward…)

Hatori is the family doctor and also possesses the ability to erase the minds of anybody that learns of their secret. Hatori also has a pretty sad backstory and is a really likable character. Poor guy, though.

Ayame Sohma: The snake of the Zodiac, Ayame is a flamboyant man with long silver hair and bright yellow eyes. He’s Yuki’s older brother, but Yuki doesn’t really like him much. Ayame was best friends with Hatori and Shigure in high school and they still very much hold their dynamic. Ayame’s a fun character, but I don’t much care for his loud background music.

Hatsuharu Sohma: The cow of the Zodiac, Hatsuharu also has a bit of a dual personality problem, only much worse than Kagura. He has two sides to him, white and black. When he’s white Haru, he’s very mild mannered and kind. When he’s black Haru he’s very loud, rough and blunt.

Haru’s my favorite character. His character design is really cool, his personality’s awesome and Justin Cook plays him so well it’s amazing. I can’t watch that scene where he turns black in episode 13 enough.

Kisa Sohma: The tiger of the Zodiac, Kisa is an incredibly quiet girl who is SO ADURRRRABLLLLLLLL. ❤ Not much to say about her but she’s SO KYUUUTTT….*cough*

Hiro Sohma: The ram/sheep of the Zodiac, Hiro’s a brat. He’s even more annoying than Kyo. Hiro’s only at his nicest when he’s around Kisa, whom he has a crush on, but even that’s not really nice. Again, this seems like an abusive relationship waiting to happen. Hiro’s even more of a jerk than Kyo and Kisa’s more quiet and reserved than Tohru…

Ritsu Sohma: The monkey of the Zodiac, and the final zodiac member we ever meet, Ritsu is a crossdresser that has no self-confidence. No matter what he does, if something bad happens at all, he flails around the room going crazy asking for forgiveness and saying he’s sorry. Ritsu’s okay, but he gets annoying after a while. He’s best in small doses. I guess it’s a good thing he’s only in one episode.

Uo: Uo is one of Tohru’s best friends. She really looked up to Tohru’s mom and even sometimes takes the guise of her mom’s old gang uniform mask. Uo is very much a tough girl who keeps the bullies, such as the Prince Yuki Fanclub, away from Tohru. However, she’s still incredibly kind and a great friend to Tohru.

Hana: Hana is Tohru’s other best friend. She’s a monotone psychic who is also incredibly protective of Tohru and will send out her psychic energy to any that threaten her. Hana’s actually very funny because she keeps bringing this creepy deadpan monotone humor to this otherwise lighthearted show. Despite seeming creepy to many, she’s very kind and loving.

Akito Sohma: The ‘god’ of the Zodiac and the head of the Sohma family, Akito has caused more than his fair share of despair across the family. He’s an incredibly skinny and frail person who likes keeping his family under his thumb. Akito’s a bit of a psycho, bit of a jerk and pretty scary, but that’s his purpose.

Art and Animation: The art is great and pretty unique. Both the character designs and the backgrounds are wonderful to look at. The animation is also fluid and lovely.

Music: The music, for the most part, is lighthearted and cheerful. It’s very calming and fun, even if Ayame’s is just a bit too annoying. The soundtrack is great and yet another CD I’d gladly own. I particularly love the OP.

Voice Acting: Dub wise, I’m not much of a fan of Aya’s or Ritsu’s voices, but that might just be me. Everyone else is spot on and perfect for their roles. Sub wise, Yuki’s voice always seemed way too girly and high pitched for me. I get that he’s a gentle boy, but he has gone through puberty, people.

Bottom Line: Most of the characters are really likable in some way and many are so likable I wish I could know them in real life. The story is very engaging and entertaining, and I wish it continued. This is one of those anime that I could watch over and over again and never get tired of it. I recommend everyone to give it a shot, but don’t get your hopes up too high about the ending.

Additional Information and Notes: Fruits Basket is based off of a manga by Natsuki Takaya. The anime adaptation was directed by Akitaro Daichi who also directed Kodomo no Omacha and Animation Runner Kuromi. It was written by Higuchi Tachibana and produced by Studio Deen.

Funimation currently holds the licensing rights to the English Dub in the US.

Episodes: 26

Year: 2001

Recommended Audience: There are some hints of nudity because the Zodiac members don’t transform back to humans with their clothes on. However, you honestly can’t see anything. Kyo swears a bit and the ending is pretty heavy in tone. 10+

Final Notes: This review was written long before the 2019 version of Fruits Basket was announced. To put it in perspective, this is one of the first reviews I ever wrote. This page will be updated when I have fully watched and reviewed the reboot……but I am so excited to see it!

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