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...after FUNimation announced they were brining out uncut, bilingual DVDs for this series, I had to bite.

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Yu-Gi-Oh: Original Uncut Edition

The Shadow Games

Review by: Devin Pratt

224 Episode Anime TV Series

Company: 4Kids Entertainment/FUNimation

Running Time: 70 minutes

Region: 1

Rated: PG-13 (fantasy violence)

EXTERNAL EXAM

Many centuries ago, ancient Egyptians created a series of games known as the Shadow Games. These games would determine the fate of anyone who played them, for better or worse.

Now, in modern times, a young man named Yugi Muto who loves games of any kind, accidentally awakens the spirit of a pharaoh trapped inside an ancient artifact known as the Millennium Puzzle. Whenever someone threatens Yugi, the pharaoh awakens inside of him and challenges that person to a Shadow Game.

One day at school, Yugi and his friends begin playing a popular trading card game called Duel Monsters. While it seems harmless at first, they have yet to realize just what kind of game this really is, and what kind of adventures it will lead to.

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: These episodes aired about 4 years ago, and honestly look fantastic. The colors are very vibrant and the picture is grain-free. The only imperfection seems to be a little bit of rainbowing when a character’s expression gets serious, but it doesn’t stick out that much at all.

AUDIO: This disc comes with a brand new English dub and the original Japanese dialogue, and both are a basic stereo mix. They sound great, and have absolutely no problems.

EDITS: No next episode previews, no episode recaps and apparently only one eye catch is shown per episode (usually there’s one that leads to a commercial and another that brings the show back). Opening and ending credits are left untouched, but are not translated.

EXTRAS: With the exception of a montage of trailers for other 4Kids and FUNimation series and a front-loaded, unskippable commercial for WWE toys, there are no extras to be found. Also, a special note to both 4Kids and FUNi: an English dub should NOT be considered an extra (it’s listed as one on the back of the case).

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: Based off of the manga by Kazuki Takahashi, these are the first three episodes of the insanely popular Yugioh: Duel Monsters TV series. A sort of Pokemon that revolves around a card game, the show blends adventure with themes of ancient Egypt. It’s a standard weekly anime in the same vein as Dragonball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho, and has exceptionally good animation courtesy of Studio Gallop (Initial D, Rurouni Kenshin).

ACTING: The Japanese cast is relatively good. The voice of Yugi, a young man named Shunsuke Kazama, does a very good job and really suits the character. Seto Kaiba’s voice actor, Kenjirou Tsuda, is also very good.

While the dub is brand new for this release, the cast from the edited version is used here. Some of the voices are hit or miss, but for the most part the actors sound good. My particular favorite is Darren Dunstan, the voice of Pegasus J. Crawford (Maximillion Pegasus in the dub); he’s managed to capture the character incredibly well. On the other hand, Jimmy Zoppi, who voices Insector Haga (Weevil Underwood in the dub), is really terrible. Why do people find it necessary to give any character with glasses and an odd haircut a mad scientist-type accent?

FAN SERVICE: Considering that 4Kids never had any intention of releasing an uncut, bilingual DVD for this series, this disc is fan service in itself. Other than that, you get to see a lot of the cards used in the actual Yu-Gi-Oh card game.

FINAL EXAM

When this series first showed up on Kids WB, I remember watching a few episodes and being mildly interested. Having watched Pokemon for a few years and then feeling burned out from watching long, merchandise-driven anime (says the DBZ fan), I didn’t really follow it for very long. However, I’d always been interested in what the original Japanese version was like. So after FUNimation announced they were brining out uncut, bilingual DVDs for this series, I had to bite. And I’m glad I did; this show really is not that bad.

The first thing that drew me in was the really nice looking animation. Usually with weekly anime series like this, the animation ranges from excellent to piss-poor each week. But this show maintains a nice style that never dips below good. Also, the colors are really pleasing to the eyes, making for a more enjoyable experience.

Character designs are really interesting in this series; you should know this just by looking at Yugi’s hair. The monsters that show up in these episodes look very cool and unique (sometimes menacing). One of my favorites in particular is Pegasus; there’s some kind of strange elegance about his design that works with his joyful, sometimes sarcastic tone.

However, as entertaining as these episodes can be, something needs to be said about the disc itself. It seems like very little effort went into making this DVD. First of all, the chapter stops are very sporadic and really don’t make much sense. There’s no way to skip the opening to the show without missing quite a bit of the episode, which can be very annoying. To make things even more troublesome, there’s no chapter select menu.

Another glaring problem with this disc is the subtitles. Rather than give a separate translation for the Japanese dialogue, we are given dubtitles. While this new dub is very faithful to the original script, it gets very annoying when a character is speaking one thing in (relatively) clear English while something different is subtitled. Also, someone must have been asleep at the wheel during quality control, as the translated subtitles also contain sound effects and sometimes identify who is speaking, similar to what you’d see in closed captioning.

Finally, one thing I find totally uncalled for is a lack of credits. Absolutely no one is credited with this disc besides 4Kids and FUNimation. Nothing for the translator, nothing for the authoring studio, not even an English cast list. This is nothing but laziness and I consider it a slap in the face to anyone involved with this disc.

While these problems are somewhat large in my book, I’d say it’s another case of you pay for what you get. That’s not necessarily bad, however; you can get this disc for under 20 bucks at most places, which isn’t bad if you’re looking to get into the show and have no idea what to expect.

If you’re a die-hard fan of Yu-Gi-Oh, then this disc is most definitely for you. Even if you’re somewhat curious about this show and can overlook the negatives, I’d say give this first volume a shot.

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