"You killed him" overly serious, no charm, overused "You sent him to the shadow real" drowns in charm, fate worse than death, very original, 100 times funnier
Yeah, the concept of death made a lot more sense in the manga where it was apparent that the Millennium items tended to make the user and, by extension, their henchmen a lot more malicious. Whereas, in the anime, most of Marik's lackeys really had no reason to be adding "murderer" to their resume.
honestly growing up i had no idea this was actually an act of censorship,i thought it was always intrinsically part of the story. which is a testiment to what a good idea it was
In some ways the english version of GX made more sense continuity wise than the Japanese version. At least in the english version the World of Darkness is more or less just implied to be the Shadow Realm. While in the Japanese version some random new dimension came out of nowhere, completely unrelated to the original series.
Wasn't the Shadow Realm like an actual thing all along? It didn't play any role in the duels it was used to censor, but it was definitely a thing that existed
@@tonberry2670 I don't think the Shadow Realm itself was, but I do believe even in the original they were called Shadow Games which implied the Millennium items were drawing from some darkness from the get go 🤔
I actually agree here! It fit in so tonally with the magic and with the Shadow Games, I couldn’t even tell it was a dub edit as a kid. When I got older and learned about it, I remember thinking it would make the outcomes of duels more predictable if it was just death.
Never knew you watched Yugioh. But I completely agree. Like and eternity of pain and torment is more substantial sounding then just outright killing them. There is no afterlife in the Shadow Realm. Just an eternity of suffering and that sounds so much cooler. So I consider one of the few times where censorship actually improves a story. Hell people joke about the shadow realm to this day.
I didn’t watch all of the seasons, but for the ones I did see the shadow bit seemed to fit pretty well. Never would have guessed that was edited from the original!
Also let’s not forget dub Pegasus’s motivation, in the sub he wanted to make a hologram version of his deceased wife after defeating Yugi and Kaiba(which seems like it’s something he could have done anyway) in the dub Pegasus wanted to use yugis millennium item to take over the world and revive his deceased wife.
@@dakotastein9499 okay after researching it a bit more you’re right Pegasus did not want to take over the world, but his motivations did change as in the sub he wanted to use Kaiba corps holographic technology to make a fake version of his dead wife while in the Dub he wanted the millennium items to revive his wife so yes his motivations did change, not drastically but they did indeed change.
Technically Pegasus actually wanted ALL Seven Millennium Items, being told I think by Shadi that if he did that the power of all Seven could bring the Dead Back, which considering the crazy stuff a single item can accomplish it's actually pretty easy to believe.
Makes the bad guys scarier to little kids in the "fate worse than death" and "our bad guys can literally send you to Hell--even if you don't deserve it."
@@mra4521 Yeah, some of those punishments looked REALLY bad. Like when Marik beats Mai and she ends up trapped in an hourglass that's slowly filling up with sand and as it fills she starts losing memories of who she is. Morphing Jar never looked scarier than when Yami Bakura used it on Pegasus' guards, the guards he was already attacking with a car sized Man-Eater Bug.
Adding to that, the Shadow Realm being its own term gives it an eldritch horror kind of vibe. Everyone knows hell is that place with lava and fire with some horny red dude with a fork, and while it would still absolutely suck to be there, the Shadow Realm is much more abstract and mysterious. The unknown elicits two feelings: curiosity and wonder, but more relevantly, a primal fear and dread. You know what hell is supposed to look like, but the Shadow Realm is a complete mystery, one that you're not eager to uncover.
It’s crazy that the shadow realm not only is something that works in-universe, but is also still a part of pop culture 20+ years later. Which is crazy. That’s up there with classic SpongeBob levels of staying power. Like, non-Yugioh/anime TH-camrs reference the shadow realm without need to explain what it is. Like dunkey in his youtuber tierlist video. And there are probably more examples but I haven’t done the research for that yet.
On the point of "Death being bad at its job": In many cases death doesn't even make sense as a punishment for the heroes from the villain's perspective. Most villains in YuGiOh do not actually have beef with Yugi, but rather with the Pharaoh. Therefore killing Yugi would not actually achieve the villains' goals: The Pharaoh's host body would die, and his soul would retreat back to the Millenium Puzzle until the item found a new owner whose body the Pharaoh's soul could attach to. Sending the loser of a duel to the Shadow Realm would mean that the Pharaoh would actually be the one to bear the penalty game which means the villains would actually achieve their goal of taking revenge on the Pharaoh.
@@LordTyph Because Yugi and Atem are two different souls that habit the same body so killing one will still mean the other remains, most of there villains only can kill one person at a time during a shadow game
And it became a meme popular beyond the show. I only watched the first 2 seasons due to it being at the tail end of my "I'll buy anything that's trying to coattail Pokémon" phase of childhood, but years later when people would make jokes about UFC fighters being sent to the shadow realm from a spectacular knockout I still remembered the concept and immediately got the joke.
The Shadow Realm just fits into DM Yugioh. Most Duels had it slot in perfectly, Lumis and Umbra kinda stand out, and the characters sometimes even do something similar. Like, what the hell is Marik doing if *not* Shadow Magic bs?
@@MariaYuri-qo8jy I mean, he's killing them WITH purple magic BS. And making it the Shadow Realm, something consistent between all the villains at this point, makes Mai not dying after she loses not feel weird
@@hawkticus_history_corner I haven't watched the anime in ages but in the original manga Marik wants to drown Mai in some hourglas filled with insects. He makes it slow to force Jonouchi into action so he can enjoy his fruitless attempts at saving her so can crush and kill him too. I do admit that the shadow realm fits the new Marik because he is... kinda lame. Only generic speeches of lame and vague darkness concepts. The real Marik was way better. If you haven't read the manga, do your self a favor and do so. The real Marik is so heartless and evil without being a boring edgelord. A shame his spot as the villian was stolen. I also don't kile that he gets an easy happy ending.
@MariaYuri-qo8jy isn't mariks whole thing being a edgelord tho like if given the option between a slow painful death and a fast painless one he would choose to have people experience the painful one everytime.
I agree. Now, yeah, some of Marik's death traps in Battle City were pretty obviously a case of censorship in hindsight, but when you consider how many of the people "sent to the Shadow Realm" ended up coming back once Yugi beat Pegasus and Marik in their respective seasons, the Shadow Realm makes a lot of sense. As for people commenting that the Shadow Realm sounds scarier than simply saying "die" or "kill", the implication I always had as a kid was that as bad as the Shadow Realm was, once the main character beat the final villain, the people sent there could be saved.
Since I grew up Christian death didn't scare me that much, not that I understood what it was when Yu Gi-yo came out, but the Shadow Realm did. Especially since I was scared of the dark at that age.
Yeah I was raised Catholic, when I found out that the Shadow Realm was made to censor death, I thought it was pretty funny that they basically made Hell and that was supposed to be more family friendly than just dying 😂
The shadow realm is very unique. Its become so ingrained into the TCG zeitgeist due to the lack of the original source material awareness back when Duel Monsters came to the west (at least for those of the target audience 4K was targeting). Youngsters like us then were not internet savy enough to know what anime even was, our parents and us thought they were just cartoons. Adults called it "like pokemon" while youngsters were able to tell the difference, but could just say they're different because we didn't have the vocabulary. Because the era where localization was happening, anime imported to the west was not even acknowledged as anime, but just another cartoon that has a surprisingly better quality to it, and that became a metaphorical drug to that generation upon getting older, and after at least a Decade or two anime is more well known as s concept, and thus the retroactive analysis of what we thought were just cartoons were actually anime, and even more, different from the original release in its native land. The Shadow Realm is one of many, and because that concept became ingraned into our culture, it's accepted as such despite it being censorship. Media controls the culture, and if a censorship like that can affect a generation because of laws, it's scary to imagine what happens in countries whose governments have even a tighter control over the media.
I mean, Anime literaly just means Animation, they are in japan conceptualy the same as a cartoon, only reason we call it anime is because it's animated so diferently and destinct from the normal cartoons
Fundamentally the Shadow Realm works because its expanding on something the show already uses, Dark Magicks Of Torment, from Pegasus' Shadow Game creating a space as if in another realm, to Marik trapping Mai in a prison of eternal waiting and pain, there's enough solid material for "people can be sent to Magic Super Hell" to stretch it, if a bit unbelievably at times, and the ritualistic nature of "The price for losing is that your soul, the ante, will be DOOOOOOOMMMMEEDDDD" fits the tone a lot better than "lmao gonna drop you three hundred feet but only if you lose, we have standards for our murder"
In the Sub, "Shadow Realm" is simply Hell, like literally its just Hell where bad people go so death threats over the card games is outlandish, Shadow Realm fixed that issue
Let’s also give mention to the badass music that the 4Kids dub made, because “It’s time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel!” With the brass instruments, or Kaiba’s hacking theme, were not part of the Japanese version
Same with the Pokemon theme. "I wanna be the very best" is a 4Kids creation. For all the flak it receives (they really shouldn't have tried to adapt a series like One Piece), 4Kids had some serious work ethic and creativity and often elevated the original work. Same with the English dubs of DBZ making Goku more akin to Superman, which has influenced pop-culture so intensely despite Toriyama himself calling Goku childish, selfish and poisonous. "We're better than Vegeta. We're not going to kill him out of revenge, and maybe he'll learn there's a better way" is so much more impactful than "Gosh, that guy was really strong. Leave him alive so we can fight again!"
One of the things I really liked about the dub's music was how some tracks had kind of a "soap opera" quality to them-specifically, the tracks they'd play outside of duels, like during conversations. It was a perfect fit, because _Yu-Gi-Oh!'s_ writing stood out among cartoons in the US at the time. It really felt like I was watching an animated soap opera, at times.
@@Vherstinae 4Kids didn't want One Piece. They were contractually obligated to dub it because it came packaged with other shows that they did want at the time.
Surprisingly the Shadow Realm being a dub concept even ties into the main lore so well that it took me a while to notice that they never explained where it came from but seeing as we've only seen millennium item users summon the Shadow Realm and the millennium items were made from a dark magic ritual sacrifice, the same dark magic that Zork is formed from tieing the Shadow Realm, millennium items and Zork all together indirectly.
Dub, not dud. It took me a bit to realize you meant it was a positive. A dud is something that fails: as far as I can tell, it traces its origin back to the first airborne bombs where failures would go thud/"dud" rather than boom. The dub, which I'll admit I don't know the etymology of this one (maybe "double"?), is where voices are added rather than simply subtitles.
I also agree that the Shadow Realm felt more natural for Yugioh, and I remember there being a dub for Dragon Ball Z where instead of the afterlife, when people got beaten in that dub they were sent to the next dimension, which for people like Goku and his friends, it kind of worked that way since in most cases they were allowed to keep their bodies, and could continue training and technically living in Other World, they just couldn't interact with living beings anymore unless they were given a special pass from someone like Yenma, but they could still communicate through someone like King Kai, so the next dimension thing kinda worked too.
That dub is called the Ocean dub. It's where the Over 9000 meme came from. Ultimately, the "other dimension" thing wouldn't make sense in dbz since for some reason, the afterlife appears to be in a physical place in the universe that you can reach by teleporting lol
@@mena10ss I remember when watching the Saturday morning re-dub of DBZ Kai, Roshi didn't tell Chichi, "Goku's... kinda dead." Instead, he says, "Goku's... in Other World." Yes, that was the re-dub that changed Spirit Bomb to "Spirit Blast" and infamously turned Mr. Popo blue.
Another thing that could have been mentioned is that when a punishment is undecided. A the shadow realm tailors punishments accordingly. Like the shadow duelist in gx being sent to the shadow realm as consequence for falsely claiming to have that power. The vampire aging and dying as she failed to do the one thing to save her people. It kind a goes on. Don't f with the shadow realm.
The concept works well when there’s a shadow game being played. It did not work well in the 2 games with the rare hunters since shadow realm by falling from A skyscraper or cut by razor just didn’t work. Given the dub clearly managed to get through the duel where Joey is controlled to duel Yugi, I don’t see why those other rare hunter duels required the censorship. Especially because said fate is avoided by the rare hunters in both instances.
I mean in the case of Arkana I concede that it’s dumb, but at the same time it’d be really easy for a kid to see a saw in the uncensored version and try to imitate it with their friends, so I’m willing to let it slide. Can’t really say the same for the glass platform though, it’s just as infeasible for a kid to recreate as the Joey Duel.
I will always find it funny that 4 kids idea of censorship for death was basically...Hell. Like that's somehow better. Still, it was such a great addition that many didn't even know it was not a real thing.
I think it’s important to put out there are actually some examples were for kids and did not try to censor out death with shadow game. The Dual between Joey(mind controlled) and Yugi While one can argue this was done because they couldn’t think of a way to “ shadow game it” It still stood up to me as a kid as one of the most intense duels because of the implementation of the shadow realm to earlier dual. Basically by using the consequence of death way less the Dub it amplify the moment it did use it
That's a similar reason to why I disagree with people that think that something like Attack on Titan is the best because "anyone and everyone can die" because death is oversaturated in those series, it kind of loses meaning when you stop caring about the characters involved because "he's dead, she's dead, they're dead" and then also realize that the main trio are completely immune to death. Now I of course get that the series has other things people love (though it's still not for me,) but you really can become inoculated against the concept when it's overused in a show 🤔
@@homerman76 yeah if you just kill randomly why would anyone care about the characters there’s no point in getting attached to them if there just going to get killed unceremoniously
I think the duel at the pier you're referring was ultimately given little to no censorship was simply how the brutally came not from the consequences of the duel but the overall stakes. It was Joey and Thea, and the consequences were ultimately getting crushed by a large crate and being drowned. Not exactly on par with getting your leg sawed off or getting eaten alive by ghosts... does raised questions as to why they felt the need to make the duel between the two mask brothers atop the glass roof a shadow duel tho.
@@guncannon109 Because if they didn't make it a Shadow Game, then the guys in masks would have gotten away and there would be no closure. We see them opening parachutes so they don't splat after the glass on their side breaks, but thanks to the Shadow Realm, all those parachutes did was make sure their corpses remained relatively intact after their still screaming souls were torn from their bodies and cast into eternal torment.
Honestly, the concept of the Shadow Realm just works so well for Yu-Gi-Oh as it's a show steeped heavily in magic and mysticism, why wouldn't the villains in this show who have access to magic not use it to trap their enemies in a world of nightmares and darkness if given the chance. Sure it's a little corny, but so what, frankly it makes more sense to do that then outright murder people over trading cards.
I'd argue that "Banishing them to a realm of eternal torture" is an even MORE ridiculous thing to do over a card game.... Which is why I kinda love it. :3
@@jasam01 But it does make sense when you realize mystical ancient relics are involved, like, why did Lummus and Umbra need to murder Kaiba and Yugi via falling if they lost? It makes a lot more sense though from the "this was to set up the shadow game ritual" angle though 🤔
@@jasam01 remember, that card game was based on ancient battles involving magic and had 3 very angry cards essentially torment the games creator until he sealed the cards away. Don't forget the cards have their own world. Edit: censored or uncensored the story was kinda wild even with the magic using a card game as a medium.
the shadow realm just worked so well because the egyptian mysticism was already shown to exist in this universe. It fit seamlessly with the millenium items
This shadow realm as a concept changed my life, ever since I was a kid if I lost track of something I’d just say “oh I guess it must be in the shadow realm”
The most interesting thing about the Shadow Realm to me is how it’s entered common American lingo, like watch a video of a big knockout in a fight or a big hit in a football game and you’re guaranteed to find at least one comment saying “He got sent to the Shadow Realm”, there’s probably people who never even watched/played Yugi Oh who use the phrase
I remember when I first learned that the Shadow Realm was a dub inclusion and that the penalty for losing games was supposed to be death and I was like... fucking how? The whole Pegasus and Marik arcs are full to the brim of characters losing duels and being banished/sealed. Also, using magic to trap someone in an eternal nightmare that 99.9% of people would have no way of escaping from on their own even when they actually DO know what they're dealing with - magic that requires an actual trial by ritual combat to work most of the time - just makes way more sense than anything else. If the villains just wanted to kill a guy, they could just hire some dude with a gun and be done with it. A magic banishment that leaves the winner with some power over the victim is simply the more fitting outcome, even before factoring in the idea that almost every character during the show ends up banished one way or another but comes back anyway.
The thing that's also interesting about why the Shadow Realm works so well is that it's the dub finishing through the censorship the sub already started, but never really ever fully committed to. It's actually hilarious to me how often people cite the dub as worse because it was "censored," when the sub already went ham censoring the source material, even creating a continuity discrepancy because Pegasus lives now (on that note, I'd also say censoring the blood from that scene also improved things, not because blood shouldn't be a thing, but because it was drawn horribly.) The sub couldn't decide between making the series more kid friendly and retaining the source material, creating a really awkward hybrid between censored and uncensored material. The dub just saw the unfinished job and decided to finish what was already started... to varying results (it's hard to deny that editing out the guns wielded by the bodyguards was just super awkward, but then you have something like barrel dragon who works a lot better with his futuristic laser gun design, imo.)
@@LordTyph It honestly kind of is. It's also kind of funny since the manga is the one that follows the anime's heels once you get into Gx and beyond, kind of like what Dragon Ball Super went through. It's why it's funny when I see talk about filler for both series since "How can the anime have filler when it has its own canon and continuity?"
While I agree the sub did censor things, the dub however censor so many things that it lead to inconsistent characters motivations and plot holes. The sub for the most part never intended to be 100% percent a note for note copy of the manga there's also has og characters and "filler" arcs that aren't in the manga at all
A censorship I never see talked about despite making it better is the dub changing the wine in Pegasus’ glass to fruit juice. A deathly serious man who never misses an episode of loony tunes would absolutely drink fruit juice out of a wine glass
I think it only works as a penalty specifically for millenium item users like Bakura, Pegasus, Marik or even Shadi. The reason why it's so silly for the rare hunters and goons to do it, is cuz how the HELL do they have access to the shadow realm with everyday object?
Suppose you could say that Marik was pulling the...strings But yeah if they didn't bother circumnavigating the brainwashed Joey duel which involved drowning, then I don't see why falling through a roof is any worse. The buzzsaw cutting off people's feet though is pretty gruesome so that censorship at least makes sense from a network regulations standpoint
I found that it made perfect sense and, without knowing it was censorship, was a brilliant way of upping the stakes. Suddenly you have thugs who can access the Shadow Realm? How? Who has the kind of power to let an ordinary mortal tap into this kind of thing? It made Marik even more intimidating as a nebulous enemy because he could somehow "sponsor" his minions with this magical power. It meant that any duel could become potentially lethal now, while not being as absurd as someone simply being willing to kill over the game.
There are a few instances here and there where it doesn't make sense, but yeah, by and large it works well as a unifying concept for several of the wacky spiritual things which occur during the show.
Yeah I remember being dissapointed a few years back when I found out the shadow realm was a creation of the dub. As a kid I didn't know how heavily edited anime was so I didn't know what to look for. I agree the Shadow Realm actually elevated the series. It was one of those few examples of an addition to a work for censorship purposes that really does tie everything together rather then feeling out of place in the setting.
I think the biggest problem I had with the Shadow Realm was that it made the final duel between Yami Marik and Yugi not have any consequences. "If you defeat me my GOOD half goes to the Shadow Realm!" "Yeah, but everyone that was sent there because of you will be free after I beat you, so he'l be there for all of 2 seconds."
Rather hot take but I agree with it. Before learning about the 'world of monsters' in the Atlantis arc I thought the monsters were from the shadow realm. They were originally used to fight 'shadow games' after all.
Well in the anime specifically monsters come from human souls there "ka" and monsters also come from the spirit world too, like Kabiaman, the signer dragons, etc
It was definitely a good and convenient addition that worked for Duel Monsters and GX, but I felt that when it was eventually added back into 5D's dub, it didn't fit as well and should have been substituted with something else that would have made better sense.
Part of that is because 5Ds was a bit more sci-fi focuses, though I do feel it worked pretty well for the Dark-Signers Arc, since that arc was literally about vengeful spirits returning, using the power of ancient evil monsters to steal souls.
I´ve read the manga before duel monsters took off. The Shadow realm makes more sense in a setting that centers around a card game and in wich people survive actually geting killed. YGO is dark and was even darker with the previous plot. Looking back on season 1 & 2 the shadow realm is the only good thing that is an actual improvement for the show, when 4Kidz made a lot of questioning censorship.
The whole shadow realm thing makes so much more sense than death that I never would've guessed it was censorship until I found out about it via the internet. When I first watched the show, I was plenty old enough to recognize that the poorly edited out guns was obvious censorship and made the show worse because without realizing that the finger guns are supposed to be actual guns, some of the scenes really don't make sense. However, with how frequently people come back from the shadow realm, I assumed for a while that it wasn't censorship at all. It made perfect sense, more sense than death I'd argue. It's so much easier to undo being sent to the shadow realm than it is to circumvent death.
As a very big defender of dubs and someone with a soft spot for 4kids dubs especially the Shadow Relm always worked so well. It’s a he’ll that’s g rated enough to not get people mad, while still functioning as it. It connects characters and magic together such as with Zork and while the show can be memed on for other ideas connected to it (dark energy disks) it’s still something a punishment regardless.
I understand the argument, but it still feels crowbarred in in some instances, as in Dark Energy Disks instead of buzzsaws or being dropped into a portal to the shadow realm instead of death by falling from the top of a high-rise building. It felt a bit unnecessary since they made no such changes to the duel between Yugi and Joey (possessed by Marik), where there was both the threat of drowning for both of them and the the threat of Tea being crushed under a crate should the duel be interfered with. It makes me wonder just how much of the censorship was really needed.
Yeah, those 2 are some of the worse examples. At least the dark energy disks looked a bit different so a kid can believe that they're magic (possibly created with the help of the Millenium Rod), but even if I believed that as a kid, even I knew that it was a stretch to have a shadow realm portal in a random high-rise.
Ironically enough the high-rise fall is pretty gruesome even with the censor. The guy has a parachute which saves him from hitting the ground however once he comes to a stop it's clear that no one's home anymore.
Honestly, I think that bit with Yugi, Joey, and Tea facing actual death as a risk makes those duels stand out even MORE. Because there's a risk of something permanent. It also fits with the story's theme that death should stay final, with the Pharoah passing on instead of lingering in the world of the living. It's amazing how much 4Kids managed to screw up and also blunder into things that fits with the themes of the show.
@@LordTyph OK I’m gonna have to disagree with you there because whenever there was a duel involving them and they were like “ The consequence is death” I immediately lose interest because I know they’re going to win, The shadow realm sometimes is just a light slap but you know what I could believe these Curtis losing for a light slap rather than death. having death as a consequence ends up taking a lot of the risk away because so many times you simply can’t have these characters die. The only time in the original where I think the couch is my actually die was Wayne Marrick mind controlled Joey into dueling Yugi . And that’s mainly because of the ending of the duel
I also find it hilarious how in their efforts to censor everything, they somehow made Kaiba into an even bigger asshole than he was in the original. Pretty much all the changes either made the show better, or increased the meme potential which helped bring the show into the spotlight even more.
As a kid I found the shadow realm infinitely scarier than death, and still honestly do. Hilarious when censorship inadvertently makes something scarier conceptually.
I actually didn't think the shadow realm worked as a kid. I'd already encountered "next dimension" in DBZ and was acutely aware it was censorship. I thought "ripping people's souls out of their bodies sounds like it'd kill them". Mind you, I liked edgy, early pre-duelist kingdom yugioh best when I really started getting into manga, because the anime has a bunch of stuff that never really gets properly elaborated on that happened before Yugi's duel with Kaiba in the first episode.
The "Shadow Realm" was probably THE most influential piece of censorship in anime history. It's still relevant to this day and used as a figure of speech online.😂
My brother and I have for years talked about how the Shadow Realm is a farm more horrifying concept. The only duel that used the concept where I think it flopped was the rooftop double duel, but even the Arcana Shadow Disks was enhanced by the idea of having your mind locked away in a torturous hellscape.
The shadow realm is also such an iconic phrase, you can namedrop it in most corners of the internet and even many people who never watched the show will get the reference. I was certainly giggling when Thor 4 brought it up.
I actually started watching the 4K!DS dub a while ago after having only seen the abridged series. The shadow realm really does tie things together. The even tied in the reversible circumstance of Pegasus snatching people's souls by saying their souls were in the shadow realm.
One thing I'll say is that Joey didn't exactly pulled a get out of jail free card in his duel against Marik, there wasn't even a penalty game in that fight because Marik wasn't even going to win fairly, he simply was convinced that Ra's attack would burn Joey's soul thus killing him and winning by default. Penalty games are basically unstoppable and you can only hope that your friends pull you out of them when they're non-lethal, as it was for Yugi's grandpa and Mai. I also think that these Saw movie traps we see on Battle City are fitting because one, not everyone possesses a Millennium Item, and two, they sort of work as a modern equivalent of penalty games when the duel isn't a Shadow Game, which fits with this dynamic of comparing the past with the present that the og show/manga used for the story and worldbuilding.
At that point everyone was already used to fantasy world, so the Shadow Realm was clear implication: More then likely quite a bit worse then what was censored. Pirates of the Caribbean had a good quote for this situation describing the difference between Jack's and Barbossa's situation and why one of them could be brought back. Jack could not be brought back because he was in that worlds version of the shadow realm. While bringing back Barbossa was relatively easy. Or DnD Rules for most resurrection abilities: "If the soul is willing and able to return." Yeah, the latter might be impaired with magical sealing like the Shadow Realm.
I really wish the folks at Konami were just a bit more flexible about marketing Yugioh for younger kids these days. They don't have to make it for adults or teens specifically, but being willing to expand on the Shadow Realm concept in a possible remake of the original series could be a great way to recapture and enrich the shoenen-horror vibe of the early manga without being too graphic. Just giving the viewers a brief glimpse of whatever unique torment awaits the loser of a duel when they enter the Shadow Realm would be enough.
the shadow realm fits perfectly for sure, but I still prefer the uncensored version just because I found keith's death by handgun too cool when I was a kid
It’s still hard for me to fathom that the Shadow Realm was entirely a censorship invention because of how well it fits everything. It’s probably the cleanest bit of censorship I’ve ever seen.
Agreed. The discontinuity of the Shadow Realm only exists because of the artifacts left over from the Japanese animation. I think if the show had started with the Shadow Realm in mind, they would’ve been able to make the stakes of each duel more cohesive.
As bad as censorship is in general, on very rare occasion it gives spark to an idea that works better in the setting than what it replaced. Still not a justification for censorship, but it is nice when there is that rare upside.
Facts! I mean, so many people get brought back when the punisher is defeated. Having duels in bizarro areas makes it more interesting, and it works pretty well. I may be nostalgic, but I miss the shadow games.
I honestly think the shadow realm makes death in yugioh more special. A lot of characters who died in the OG are sent to the shadow realm but some people in the dub do actually die; Shadi, Noah, Kaiba’s parents, everyone in ancient Egypt, etc.
Huh, I never really watched the anime, but I've read the manga and there are Shadow Games and Penalty Games, so my impression was always that the Shadow Realm was a specific type of penalty game. My impression was also that the anime butchered the depiction of Kaiba's mind crush from the manga, and did away with a lot of shadow/penalty games, so i had always assumed shadow realm was just a reference to penalty games.
Funnily enough, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's had "The Netherworld", which for all intents and purposes _was_ the Shadow Realm (even in the Japanese version). I'm really not sure why 4Kids didn't just call it that and instead used a new term.
As someone who writes a lot of fanfiction (not about YGO, mind you...I'm not big-brained enough to creatively write about that series), I can honestly say...yeah, I definitely agree. Writing in deaths of important characters just complicates so many things in a story, ESPECIALLY if it's a longer saga. Honestly, too many important deaths just drag down a storyline as a whole, after a certain point. The Shadow Realm is definitely a happy accident though, along the lines of the 'Spirit Blast', honestly.
The point is, the Yugioh manga and anime are primarily targeted at teenage audiences in Japan. After all, Shonen manga and anime primarily target early to late teen boys between 12 and 18. And the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump is confirmed by now former chief-editor Hiryuki Nakano to be for teen boys since 1968. And the OCG is advertised for ages 12 and up in Japan. Has been since 1999.
0:58 dbz had another dimension lol gotta love these euphemisms. I did feel battle city was craziest between 0:43 Arkana power saw and 2:16 umbra/lumis falling through the skyscraper. 2:45 manga was more horror, mai only had sand in anime hourglass.
I think part of the reason it worked so well is how unique it is because let's be honest, death is cheap in most shows (shonen ones especially), so by having them potentially imprisoned somewhere forever it gives a more plausible reason for their rescue. That's not to say death and revival from death can't work well as they can but it depends on how often they're used and why.
My brother and I loved Yu-Gi-Oh growing up and when we learned that the shadow realm was a dub thing, we laughed. Censoring death by sending you to forever hell is just worse lol
It's not just nostalgia. From what I understand they worked the shadowrealm into the Japanese source material later down the line too because it was considered to be so good.
@majesticgothitelle1802 I don't actually know. I have a friend obsessed with the series and literally went on an hour long rant about how good the shadowrealm was to the point it wrapped back into the source material. He has pointed out Itty bitty details no sane person would ever know in the past and knows the deep lore behind the printings of various cards and the related stories in their pictures and flavor text and the ongoing story of them so I don't really have reason to doubt him. Hence "from what I understand" but I don't mind being proven wrong either. It might have been an anime thing. Maybe a card thing or a Manga thing. Idk.
I also liked the censorship made 4Kids create the "Shadow Realm." I mean the world if Yu-Gi-Oh is already mystic so having there be a Shadow Realm fits in the series.
"You killed him" overly serious, no charm, overused
"You sent him to the shadow real" drowns in charm, fate worse than death, very original, 100 times funnier
Yeah, the concept of death made a lot more sense in the manga where it was apparent that the Millennium items tended to make the user and, by extension, their henchmen a lot more malicious. Whereas, in the anime, most of Marik's lackeys really had no reason to be adding "murderer" to their resume.
I guess that’s why “he got sent to the shadow realm” basically replaced “he got owned” in American lingo
The Shadow Realm was such a natural addition to the series that GX basically used a similar concept with the World of Darkness.
honestly growing up i had no idea this was actually an act of censorship,i thought it was always intrinsically part of the story.
which is a testiment to what a good idea it was
In some ways the english version of GX made more sense continuity wise than the Japanese version. At least in the english version the World of Darkness is more or less just implied to be the Shadow Realm. While in the Japanese version some random new dimension came out of nowhere, completely unrelated to the original series.
Wasn't the Shadow Realm like an actual thing all along?
It didn't play any role in the duels it was used to censor, but it was definitely a thing that existed
@@tonberry2670 I don't think the Shadow Realm itself was, but I do believe even in the original they were called Shadow Games which implied the Millennium items were drawing from some darkness from the get go 🤔
@@homerman76IIRC the Japanese version does have the World of Darkness, which ended up just being called the Shadow Realm in the dub.
I actually agree here! It fit in so tonally with the magic and with the Shadow Games, I couldn’t even tell it was a dub edit as a kid. When I got older and learned about it, I remember thinking it would make the outcomes of duels more predictable if it was just death.
I know right. I was genuinely shocked to learn that the shadow realm was a censorship for death. Characters come back from the shadow realm.
Chugga watches yugioh???
Never knew you watched Yugioh. But I completely agree. Like and eternity of pain and torment is more substantial sounding then just outright killing them.
There is no afterlife in the Shadow Realm. Just an eternity of suffering and that sounds so much cooler. So I consider one of the few times where censorship actually improves a story. Hell people joke about the shadow realm to this day.
I didn’t watch all of the seasons, but for the ones I did see the shadow bit seemed to fit pretty well. Never would have guessed that was edited from the original!
What you doin here? Good point tho
Also let’s not forget dub Pegasus’s motivation, in the sub he wanted to make a hologram version of his deceased wife after defeating Yugi and Kaiba(which seems like it’s something he could have done anyway) in the dub Pegasus wanted to use yugis millennium item to take over the world and revive his deceased wife.
That's also in the manga, which makes sense why he wanted kaibas hologram tech
nowhere in the dub is it mentioned that pegasus wanted to rule the world..his motives dont change between dub and sub.
@@dakotastein9499 okay after researching it a bit more you’re right Pegasus did not want to take over the world, but his motivations did change as in the sub he wanted to use Kaiba corps holographic technology to make a fake version of his dead wife while in the Dub he wanted the millennium items to revive his wife so yes his motivations did change, not drastically but they did indeed change.
Technically Pegasus actually wanted ALL Seven Millennium Items, being told I think by Shadi that if he did that the power of all Seven could bring the Dead Back, which considering the crazy stuff a single item can accomplish it's actually pretty easy to believe.
This is a so much better motivation than having a "fake wife" to replace the one he actually loved
arguably,not only does the shadow realm work,but it actually makes more sense to have it than not
Makes the bad guys scarier to little kids in the "fate worse than death" and "our bad guys can literally send you to Hell--even if you don't deserve it."
@@mra4521 Yeah, some of those punishments looked REALLY bad. Like when Marik beats Mai and she ends up trapped in an hourglass that's slowly filling up with sand and as it fills she starts losing memories of who she is. Morphing Jar never looked scarier than when Yami Bakura used it on Pegasus' guards, the guards he was already attacking with a car sized Man-Eater Bug.
@@ivantheenigma577 and then destroyed by the reaper of the cards
@@ivantheenigma577 Mai's is worse in the Manga. It's bugs instead of sand.
I used to even think that the back of the cards were supposed to be the Shadow Realm lol
Adding to that, the Shadow Realm being its own term gives it an eldritch horror kind of vibe. Everyone knows hell is that place with lava and fire with some horny red dude with a fork, and while it would still absolutely suck to be there, the Shadow Realm is much more abstract and mysterious. The unknown elicits two feelings: curiosity and wonder, but more relevantly, a primal fear and dread.
You know what hell is supposed to look like, but the Shadow Realm is a complete mystery, one that you're not eager to uncover.
It’s crazy that the shadow realm not only is something that works in-universe, but is also still a part of pop culture 20+ years later. Which is crazy. That’s up there with classic SpongeBob levels of staying power.
Like, non-Yugioh/anime TH-camrs reference the shadow realm without need to explain what it is. Like dunkey in his youtuber tierlist video. And there are probably more examples but I haven’t done the research for that yet.
On the point of "Death being bad at its job": In many cases death doesn't even make sense as a punishment for the heroes from the villain's perspective. Most villains in YuGiOh do not actually have beef with Yugi, but rather with the Pharaoh. Therefore killing Yugi would not actually achieve the villains' goals: The Pharaoh's host body would die, and his soul would retreat back to the Millenium Puzzle until the item found a new owner whose body the Pharaoh's soul could attach to. Sending the loser of a duel to the Shadow Realm would mean that the Pharaoh would actually be the one to bear the penalty game which means the villains would actually achieve their goal of taking revenge on the Pharaoh.
Most of these villains also have a way to hurt both of them,and killing Yugi means they are killing Atem next
@legendarylancers7446 why not get both? As in, there and then?
@@LordTyph Because Yugi and Atem are two different souls that habit the same body so killing one will still mean the other remains, most of there villains only can kill one person at a time during a shadow game
Genius Move!
And it became a meme popular beyond the show. I only watched the first 2 seasons due to it being at the tail end of my "I'll buy anything that's trying to coattail Pokémon" phase of childhood, but years later when people would make jokes about UFC fighters being sent to the shadow realm from a spectacular knockout I still remembered the concept and immediately got the joke.
Yeah, it’s crazy that the shadow realm has remained a staple of pop culture for over twenty years. That’s classic SpongeBob levels of staying power.
Fully agree, the Shadow Realm were just the coolest concept of a "mystical torture realm"
The Shadow Realm just fits into DM Yugioh. Most Duels had it slot in perfectly, Lumis and Umbra kinda stand out, and the characters sometimes even do something similar.
Like, what the hell is Marik doing if *not* Shadow Magic bs?
What he is doing? Actually killing people imstead of sending them to magic purple land.
@@MariaYuri-qo8jy I mean, he's killing them WITH purple magic BS. And making it the Shadow Realm, something consistent between all the villains at this point, makes Mai not dying after she loses not feel weird
@@hawkticus_history_corner I haven't watched the anime in ages but in the original manga Marik wants to drown Mai in some hourglas filled with insects. He makes it slow to force Jonouchi into action so he can enjoy his fruitless attempts at saving her so can crush and kill him too. I do admit that the shadow realm fits the new Marik because he is... kinda lame. Only generic speeches of lame and vague darkness concepts. The real Marik was way better. If you haven't read the manga, do your self a favor and do so. The real Marik is so heartless and evil without being a boring edgelord. A shame his spot as the villian was stolen. I also don't kile that he gets an easy happy ending.
@MariaYuri-qo8jy isn't mariks whole thing being a edgelord tho like if given the option between a slow painful death and a fast painless one he would choose to have people experience the painful one everytime.
@@MariaYuri-qo8jy "so heartless and evil", "wants to drown Mai in insects". That's literally edgelord.
0:10 Honestly, the censored Monster Reborn is frankly cooler looking and more iconic anyway.
Absolutely
Have no idea what it is, but it is a very well-drawn... object
Yeah, OG art is just a blue ankh which is pretty generic.
@@KingBuilder525i think it's supposed to be a Key? A really weird looking key maybe?
@@Monkeylighthouse I always thought it was an item used to transformer into a dead monster.
I agree. Now, yeah, some of Marik's death traps in Battle City were pretty obviously a case of censorship in hindsight, but when you consider how many of the people "sent to the Shadow Realm" ended up coming back once Yugi beat Pegasus and Marik in their respective seasons, the Shadow Realm makes a lot of sense.
As for people commenting that the Shadow Realm sounds scarier than simply saying "die" or "kill", the implication I always had as a kid was that as bad as the Shadow Realm was, once the main character beat the final villain, the people sent there could be saved.
Don't worry yourself Yugi, these spinning buzzsaws won't take off your legs, they're merely sending you to a realm of infinite darkness.
Don't forget that down the street from the shadow realm is a chik fil a run by a man named george who offers the hugh neutron special
Chik Fil A and Shadow Realm don't belong in the same sentence. I'd say a subway with bullet proof glass fits the shadow realm better
@@BrokenValentine-333 nope, chick fil a. hugh neutron said so
@@BrokenValentine-333 Considering what the owners of CFA have funded... yes, they belong together.
Since I grew up Christian death didn't scare me that much, not that I understood what it was when Yu Gi-yo came out, but the Shadow Realm did. Especially since I was scared of the dark at that age.
Yeah, I think in a region and culture where Christian references are more well-known, a hell area sounds a lot more serious and scarier than death.
Yeah I was raised Catholic, when I found out that the Shadow Realm was made to censor death, I thought it was pretty funny that they basically made Hell and that was supposed to be more family friendly than just dying 😂
The shadow realm is very unique. Its become so ingrained into the TCG zeitgeist due to the lack of the original source material awareness back when Duel Monsters came to the west (at least for those of the target audience 4K was targeting). Youngsters like us then were not internet savy enough to know what anime even was, our parents and us thought they were just cartoons. Adults called it "like pokemon" while youngsters were able to tell the difference, but could just say they're different because we didn't have the vocabulary. Because the era where localization was happening, anime imported to the west was not even acknowledged as anime, but just another cartoon that has a surprisingly better quality to it, and that became a metaphorical drug to that generation upon getting older, and after at least a Decade or two anime is more well known as s concept, and thus the retroactive analysis of what we thought were just cartoons were actually anime, and even more, different from the original release in its native land. The Shadow Realm is one of many, and because that concept became ingraned into our culture, it's accepted as such despite it being censorship. Media controls the culture, and if a censorship like that can affect a generation because of laws, it's scary to imagine what happens in countries whose governments have even a tighter control over the media.
I mean, Anime literaly just means Animation, they are in japan conceptualy the same as a cartoon, only reason we call it anime is because it's animated so diferently and destinct from the normal cartoons
Fundamentally the Shadow Realm works because its expanding on something the show already uses, Dark Magicks Of Torment, from Pegasus' Shadow Game creating a space as if in another realm, to Marik trapping Mai in a prison of eternal waiting and pain, there's enough solid material for "people can be sent to Magic Super Hell" to stretch it, if a bit unbelievably at times, and the ritualistic nature of "The price for losing is that your soul, the ante, will be DOOOOOOOMMMMEEDDDD" fits the tone a lot better than "lmao gonna drop you three hundred feet but only if you lose, we have standards for our murder"
In the Sub, "Shadow Realm" is simply Hell, like literally its just Hell where bad people go so death threats over the card games is outlandish, Shadow Realm fixed that issue
It’s crazy - I can’t really think of *any* other instance where an obviously censorship edit worked out this well.
Let’s also give mention to the badass music that the 4Kids dub made, because “It’s time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel!” With the brass instruments, or Kaiba’s hacking theme, were not part of the Japanese version
American Toon World theme is also a big stepup from Japanese Toon World theme.
Same with the Pokemon theme. "I wanna be the very best" is a 4Kids creation. For all the flak it receives (they really shouldn't have tried to adapt a series like One Piece), 4Kids had some serious work ethic and creativity and often elevated the original work. Same with the English dubs of DBZ making Goku more akin to Superman, which has influenced pop-culture so intensely despite Toriyama himself calling Goku childish, selfish and poisonous. "We're better than Vegeta. We're not going to kill him out of revenge, and maybe he'll learn there's a better way" is so much more impactful than "Gosh, that guy was really strong. Leave him alive so we can fight again!"
One of the things I really liked about the dub's music was how some tracks had kind of a "soap opera" quality to them-specifically, the tracks they'd play outside of duels, like during conversations. It was a perfect fit, because _Yu-Gi-Oh!'s_ writing stood out among cartoons in the US at the time. It really felt like I was watching an animated soap opera, at times.
@@Vherstinae 4Kids didn't want One Piece. They were contractually obligated to dub it because it came packaged with other shows that they did want at the time.
Surprisingly the Shadow Realm being a dub concept even ties into the main lore so well that it took me a while to notice that they never explained where it came from but seeing as we've only seen millennium item users summon the Shadow Realm and the millennium items were made from a dark magic ritual sacrifice, the same dark magic that Zork is formed from tieing the Shadow Realm, millennium items and Zork all together indirectly.
Dub, not dud. It took me a bit to realize you meant it was a positive. A dud is something that fails: as far as I can tell, it traces its origin back to the first airborne bombs where failures would go thud/"dud" rather than boom. The dub, which I'll admit I don't know the etymology of this one (maybe "double"?), is where voices are added rather than simply subtitles.
I also agree that the Shadow Realm felt more natural for Yugioh, and I remember there being a dub for Dragon Ball Z where instead of the afterlife, when people got beaten in that dub they were sent to the next dimension, which for people like Goku and his friends, it kind of worked that way since in most cases they were allowed to keep their bodies, and could continue training and technically living in Other World, they just couldn't interact with living beings anymore unless they were given a special pass from someone like Yenma, but they could still communicate through someone like King Kai, so the next dimension thing kinda worked too.
That dub is called the Ocean dub. It's where the Over 9000 meme came from. Ultimately, the "other dimension" thing wouldn't make sense in dbz since for some reason, the afterlife appears to be in a physical place in the universe that you can reach by teleporting lol
@@mena10ss I remember when watching the Saturday morning re-dub of DBZ Kai, Roshi didn't tell Chichi, "Goku's... kinda dead." Instead, he says, "Goku's... in Other World."
Yes, that was the re-dub that changed Spirit Bomb to "Spirit Blast" and infamously turned Mr. Popo blue.
@@Blue_EmeraldX Kai was an atrocity. I'm so glad I didn't grow up with it.
I 100% agree with this. It fits so well in into the Yugioh universe that I'd say not having it actively makes the show worse.
Another thing that could have been mentioned is that when a punishment is undecided. A the shadow realm tailors punishments accordingly. Like the shadow duelist in gx being sent to the shadow realm as consequence for falsely claiming to have that power. The vampire aging and dying as she failed to do the one thing to save her people. It kind a goes on. Don't f with the shadow realm.
The concept works well when there’s a shadow game being played. It did not work well in the 2 games with the rare hunters since shadow realm by falling from
A skyscraper or cut by razor just didn’t work. Given the dub clearly managed to get through the duel where Joey is controlled to duel Yugi, I don’t see why those other rare hunter duels required the censorship. Especially because said fate is avoided by the rare hunters in both instances.
I mean in the case of Arkana I concede that it’s dumb, but at the same time it’d be really easy for a kid to see a saw in the uncensored version and try to imitate it with their friends, so I’m willing to let it slide. Can’t really say the same for the glass platform though, it’s just as infeasible for a kid to recreate as the Joey Duel.
_"A skyscraper [....] just didn't work."_
That's because you're not thinking with portals. :))
I will always find it funny that 4 kids idea of censorship for death was basically...Hell. Like that's somehow better. Still, it was such a great addition that many didn't even know it was not a real thing.
honestly the shadow realm feels so natural in yugioh that when I watched the sub I was actually very dissapointed that the shadow realm wasnt a thing.
I think what made it better was that you could get out
I think it’s important to put out there are actually some examples were for kids and did not try to censor out death with shadow game.
The Dual between Joey(mind controlled) and Yugi
While one can argue this was done because they couldn’t think of a way to “ shadow game it”
It still stood up to me as a kid as one of the most intense duels because of the implementation of the shadow realm to earlier dual.
Basically by using the consequence of death way less the Dub it amplify the moment it did use it
That's a similar reason to why I disagree with people that think that something like Attack on Titan is the best because "anyone and everyone can die" because death is oversaturated in those series, it kind of loses meaning when you stop caring about the characters involved because "he's dead, she's dead, they're dead" and then also realize that the main trio are completely immune to death. Now I of course get that the series has other things people love (though it's still not for me,) but you really can become inoculated against the concept when it's overused in a show 🤔
@@homerman76 yeah if you just kill randomly why would anyone care about the characters there’s no point in getting attached to them if there just going to get killed unceremoniously
I think the duel at the pier you're referring was ultimately given little to no censorship was simply how the brutally came not from the consequences of the duel but the overall stakes. It was Joey and Thea, and the consequences were ultimately getting crushed by a large crate and being drowned. Not exactly on par with getting your leg sawed off or getting eaten alive by ghosts... does raised questions as to why they felt the need to make the duel between the two mask brothers atop the glass roof a shadow duel tho.
@@guncannon109 Because if they didn't make it a Shadow Game, then the guys in masks would have gotten away and there would be no closure. We see them opening parachutes so they don't splat after the glass on their side breaks, but thanks to the Shadow Realm, all those parachutes did was make sure their corpses remained relatively intact after their still screaming souls were torn from their bodies and cast into eternal torment.
Honestly, the concept of the Shadow Realm just works so well for Yu-Gi-Oh as it's a show steeped heavily in magic and mysticism, why wouldn't the villains in this show who have access to magic not use it to trap their enemies in a world of nightmares and darkness if given the chance.
Sure it's a little corny, but so what, frankly it makes more sense to do that then outright murder people over trading cards.
I'd argue that "Banishing them to a realm of eternal torture" is an even MORE ridiculous thing to do over a card game.... Which is why I kinda love it. :3
@@jasam01 But it does make sense when you realize mystical ancient relics are involved, like, why did Lummus and Umbra need to murder Kaiba and Yugi via falling if they lost? It makes a lot more sense though from the "this was to set up the shadow game ritual" angle though 🤔
@@jasam01 remember, that card game was based on ancient battles involving magic and had 3 very angry cards essentially torment the games creator until he sealed the cards away. Don't forget the cards have their own world.
Edit: censored or uncensored the story was kinda wild even with the magic using a card game as a medium.
the shadow realm just worked so well because the egyptian mysticism was already shown to exist in this universe. It fit seamlessly with the millenium items
Meanwhile in DBZ, Vegeta be sending people to another dimension.
Considering how maby times people came back from the Afterlife via Dragon Balls?
Yeah I'd believe it if it was just another dimension
This shadow realm as a concept changed my life, ever since I was a kid if I lost track of something I’d just say “oh I guess it must be in the shadow realm”
"What's the point of having death games if no one dies".
I think that's the best way to sum it up.
And now the Shadow Realm is a piece of pop culture
The most interesting thing about the Shadow Realm to me is how it’s entered common American lingo, like watch a video of a big knockout in a fight or a big hit in a football game and you’re guaranteed to find at least one comment saying “He got sent to the Shadow Realm”, there’s probably people who never even watched/played Yugi Oh who use the phrase
I'm currently finally reading the manga, after having been a big fan of the anime as a kid, and...wow, does it feel worse without the shadow realm
I like that the shadow realm is basically just hell, but with extra steps, so it never counts as murder.
I remember when I first learned that the Shadow Realm was a dub inclusion and that the penalty for losing games was supposed to be death and I was like... fucking how? The whole Pegasus and Marik arcs are full to the brim of characters losing duels and being banished/sealed. Also, using magic to trap someone in an eternal nightmare that 99.9% of people would have no way of escaping from on their own even when they actually DO know what they're dealing with - magic that requires an actual trial by ritual combat to work most of the time - just makes way more sense than anything else. If the villains just wanted to kill a guy, they could just hire some dude with a gun and be done with it. A magic banishment that leaves the winner with some power over the victim is simply the more fitting outcome, even before factoring in the idea that almost every character during the show ends up banished one way or another but comes back anyway.
The thing that's also interesting about why the Shadow Realm works so well is that it's the dub finishing through the censorship the sub already started, but never really ever fully committed to. It's actually hilarious to me how often people cite the dub as worse because it was "censored," when the sub already went ham censoring the source material, even creating a continuity discrepancy because Pegasus lives now (on that note, I'd also say censoring the blood from that scene also improved things, not because blood shouldn't be a thing, but because it was drawn horribly.) The sub couldn't decide between making the series more kid friendly and retaining the source material, creating a really awkward hybrid between censored and uncensored material. The dub just saw the unfinished job and decided to finish what was already started... to varying results (it's hard to deny that editing out the guns wielded by the bodyguards was just super awkward, but then you have something like barrel dragon who works a lot better with his futuristic laser gun design, imo.)
Honestly, I'd argue that the changes in the anime, compared to the manga, is the big reason why the two had splitting continuities.
@@LordTyph It honestly kind of is. It's also kind of funny since the manga is the one that follows the anime's heels once you get into Gx and beyond, kind of like what Dragon Ball Super went through. It's why it's funny when I see talk about filler for both series since "How can the anime have filler when it has its own canon and continuity?"
While I agree the sub did censor things, the dub however censor so many things that it lead to inconsistent characters motivations and plot holes. The sub for the most part never intended to be 100% percent a note for note copy of the manga there's also has og characters and "filler" arcs that aren't in the manga at all
A censorship I never see talked about despite making it better is the dub changing the wine in Pegasus’ glass to fruit juice. A deathly serious man who never misses an episode of loony tunes would absolutely drink fruit juice out of a wine glass
I think it only works as a penalty specifically for millenium item users like Bakura, Pegasus, Marik or even Shadi. The reason why it's so silly for the rare hunters and goons to do it, is cuz how the HELL do they have access to the shadow realm with everyday object?
Suppose you could say that Marik was pulling the...strings
But yeah if they didn't bother circumnavigating the brainwashed Joey duel which involved drowning, then I don't see why falling through a roof is any worse. The buzzsaw cutting off people's feet though is pretty gruesome so that censorship at least makes sense from a network regulations standpoint
What do you mean? Home Depot always has Dark Energy Disks in stock.
I found that it made perfect sense and, without knowing it was censorship, was a brilliant way of upping the stakes. Suddenly you have thugs who can access the Shadow Realm? How? Who has the kind of power to let an ordinary mortal tap into this kind of thing? It made Marik even more intimidating as a nebulous enemy because he could somehow "sponsor" his minions with this magical power. It meant that any duel could become potentially lethal now, while not being as absurd as someone simply being willing to kill over the game.
@@Vherstinae It also made sense given how much more Marik knew about the Millenium Items and the Shadow Games than most villains.
Shadow realm makes Pegasus looks more evil in my opinion.
Eternal suffering in the shadow realm Is more evil, but not immediately graphical like death is, you need to think about it for a sec
There are a few instances here and there where it doesn't make sense, but yeah, by and large it works well as a unifying concept for several of the wacky spiritual things which occur during the show.
“These laser saws send you to the shadow realm.”
Right below this glass ceiling which is several stories in the air is the shadow realm.
@@rachelryan84 🤷♂️ I always just figured that they'd fall through the floor and into the Shadow Realm.
Yeah I remember being dissapointed a few years back when I found out the shadow realm was a creation of the dub. As a kid I didn't know how heavily edited anime was so I didn't know what to look for. I agree the Shadow Realm actually elevated the series. It was one of those few examples of an addition to a work for censorship purposes that really does tie everything together rather then feeling out of place in the setting.
I think the biggest problem I had with the Shadow Realm was that it made the final duel between Yami Marik and Yugi not have any consequences.
"If you defeat me my GOOD half goes to the Shadow Realm!"
"Yeah, but everyone that was sent there because of you will be free after I beat you, so he'l be there for all of 2 seconds."
Rather hot take but I agree with it. Before learning about the 'world of monsters' in the Atlantis arc I thought the monsters were from the shadow realm. They were originally used to fight 'shadow games' after all.
Well in the anime specifically monsters come from human souls there "ka" and monsters also come from the spirit world too, like Kabiaman, the signer dragons, etc
It was definitely a good and convenient addition that worked for Duel Monsters and GX, but I felt that when it was eventually added back into 5D's dub, it didn't fit as well and should have been substituted with something else that would have made better sense.
Part of that is because 5Ds was a bit more sci-fi focuses, though I do feel it worked pretty well for the Dark-Signers Arc, since that arc was literally about vengeful spirits returning, using the power of ancient evil monsters to steal souls.
I´ve read the manga before duel monsters took off. The Shadow realm makes more sense in a setting that centers around a card game and in wich people survive actually geting killed. YGO is dark and was even darker with the previous plot. Looking back on season 1 & 2 the shadow realm is the only good thing that is an actual improvement for the show, when 4Kidz made a lot of questioning censorship.
The whole shadow realm thing makes so much more sense than death that I never would've guessed it was censorship until I found out about it via the internet. When I first watched the show, I was plenty old enough to recognize that the poorly edited out guns was obvious censorship and made the show worse because without realizing that the finger guns are supposed to be actual guns, some of the scenes really don't make sense. However, with how frequently people come back from the shadow realm, I assumed for a while that it wasn't censorship at all. It made perfect sense, more sense than death I'd argue. It's so much easier to undo being sent to the shadow realm than it is to circumvent death.
I just saw the finger guns again and had to choke back my laughter. Lowkey glad they did the finger guns because it looks goofy as shit 😆
As a very big defender of dubs and someone with a soft spot for 4kids dubs especially the Shadow Relm always worked so well. It’s a he’ll that’s g rated enough to not get people mad, while still functioning as it. It connects characters and magic together such as with Zork and while the show can be memed on for other ideas connected to it (dark energy disks) it’s still something a punishment regardless.
I agree. I think the Shadow Realm was a great Dub choice. The thought of eternal torment (Hell) as a penalty really is a fate worse than death.
The Shadow Realm is basically Hell xD so in a sense, suffering forever is a fate worse than death.
I understand the argument, but it still feels crowbarred in in some instances, as in Dark Energy Disks instead of buzzsaws or being dropped into a portal to the shadow realm instead of death by falling from the top of a high-rise building. It felt a bit unnecessary since they made no such changes to the duel between Yugi and Joey (possessed by Marik), where there was both the threat of drowning for both of them and the the threat of Tea being crushed under a crate should the duel be interfered with. It makes me wonder just how much of the censorship was really needed.
Yeah, those 2 are some of the worse examples. At least the dark energy disks looked a bit different so a kid can believe that they're magic (possibly created with the help of the Millenium Rod), but even if I believed that as a kid, even I knew that it was a stretch to have a shadow realm portal in a random high-rise.
Ironically enough the high-rise fall is pretty gruesome even with the censor. The guy has a parachute which saves him from hitting the ground however once he comes to a stop it's clear that no one's home anymore.
Honestly, I think that bit with Yugi, Joey, and Tea facing actual death as a risk makes those duels stand out even MORE. Because there's a risk of something permanent. It also fits with the story's theme that death should stay final, with the Pharoah passing on instead of lingering in the world of the living.
It's amazing how much 4Kids managed to screw up and also blunder into things that fits with the themes of the show.
@@LordTyph OK I’m gonna have to disagree with you there because whenever there was a duel involving them and they were like “ The consequence is death” I immediately lose interest because I know they’re going to win,
The shadow realm sometimes is just a light slap but you know what I could believe these Curtis losing for a light slap rather than death.
having death as a consequence ends up taking a lot of the risk away because so many times you simply can’t have these characters die.
The only time in the original where I think the couch is my actually die was Wayne Marrick mind controlled Joey into dueling Yugi . And that’s mainly because of the ending of the duel
Well it was a pg-13 series retooled to aim at kids.
I also find it hilarious how in their efforts to censor everything, they somehow made Kaiba into an even bigger asshole than he was in the original. Pretty much all the changes either made the show better, or increased the meme potential which helped bring the show into the spotlight even more.
As a kid I found the shadow realm infinitely scarier than death, and still honestly do. Hilarious when censorship inadvertently makes something scarier conceptually.
I actually didn't think the shadow realm worked as a kid. I'd already encountered "next dimension" in DBZ and was acutely aware it was censorship. I thought "ripping people's souls out of their bodies sounds like it'd kill them". Mind you, I liked edgy, early pre-duelist kingdom yugioh best when I really started getting into manga, because the anime has a bunch of stuff that never really gets properly elaborated on that happened before Yugi's duel with Kaiba in the first episode.
obligatory "looks more like a purple realm, just sayin" joke
The "Shadow Realm" was probably THE most influential piece of censorship in anime history. It's still relevant to this day and used as a figure of speech online.😂
So sub straight murder dub straight up hell honestly the second one sound worse.
Unless you're a villain, then it's about the same either way xD
My brother and I have for years talked about how the Shadow Realm is a farm more horrifying concept. The only duel that used the concept where I think it flopped was the rooftop double duel, but even the Arcana Shadow Disks was enhanced by the idea of having your mind locked away in a torturous hellscape.
The shadow realm is also such an iconic phrase, you can namedrop it in most corners of the internet and even many people who never watched the show will get the reference. I was certainly giggling when Thor 4 brought it up.
The ol' "we can't have death, so we'll make a fate worse than death", Batman TAS did the same thing with the Joker Venom
I actually started watching the 4K!DS dub a while ago after having only seen the abridged series. The shadow realm really does tie things together. The even tied in the reversible circumstance of Pegasus snatching people's souls by saying their souls were in the shadow realm.
One thing I'll say is that Joey didn't exactly pulled a get out of jail free card in his duel against Marik, there wasn't even a penalty game in that fight because Marik wasn't even going to win fairly, he simply was convinced that Ra's attack would burn Joey's soul thus killing him and winning by default.
Penalty games are basically unstoppable and you can only hope that your friends pull you out of them when they're non-lethal, as it was for Yugi's grandpa and Mai.
I also think that these Saw movie traps we see on Battle City are fitting because one, not everyone possesses a Millennium Item, and two, they sort of work as a modern equivalent of penalty games when the duel isn't a Shadow Game, which fits with this dynamic of comparing the past with the present that the og show/manga used for the story and worldbuilding.
At that point everyone was already used to fantasy world, so the Shadow Realm was clear implication: More then likely quite a bit worse then what was censored.
Pirates of the Caribbean had a good quote for this situation describing the difference between Jack's and Barbossa's situation and why one of them could be brought back. Jack could not be brought back because he was in that worlds version of the shadow realm. While bringing back Barbossa was relatively easy.
Or DnD Rules for most resurrection abilities:
"If the soul is willing and able to return."
Yeah, the latter might be impaired with magical sealing like the Shadow Realm.
This duel will take place in the shadow realm! I mean come on it's such an iconic line.
I really wish the folks at Konami were just a bit more flexible about marketing Yugioh for younger kids these days. They don't have to make it for adults or teens specifically, but being willing to expand on the Shadow Realm concept in a possible remake of the original series could be a great way to recapture and enrich the shoenen-horror vibe of the early manga without being too graphic. Just giving the viewers a brief glimpse of whatever unique torment awaits the loser of a duel when they enter the Shadow Realm would be enough.
Shout-out to the Shadow Realm for inspiring the Doom Dimension in Bakugan
Boy I sure do love being trapped in a hellish plane of suffering for all eternity because I lost in a children's card game
I'm pretty sure Joey did die temporarily in the Japanese version after his Duel against Marik.
he did
I viewed the shadow realm as like the discard pile if a human goes in it
the shadow realm fits perfectly for sure, but I still prefer the uncensored version just because I found keith's death by handgun too cool when I was a kid
It’s still hard for me to fathom that the Shadow Realm was entirely a censorship invention because of how well it fits everything. It’s probably the cleanest bit of censorship I’ve ever seen.
With these modifications will be able to publish this tv series... In America!
Agreed. The discontinuity of the Shadow Realm only exists because of the artifacts left over from the Japanese animation.
I think if the show had started with the Shadow Realm in mind, they would’ve been able to make the stakes of each duel more cohesive.
Uh oh looks like You’re going to the shadow realm jimbo!!!
As bad as censorship is in general, on very rare occasion it gives spark to an idea that works better in the setting than what it replaced. Still not a justification for censorship, but it is nice when there is that rare upside.
I wonder if Hugh ever let Jimmy out of the Shadow Realm.
Facts! I mean, so many people get brought back when the punisher is defeated. Having duels in bizarro areas makes it more interesting, and it works pretty well. I may be nostalgic, but I miss the shadow games.
I honestly think the shadow realm makes death in yugioh more special. A lot of characters who died in the OG are sent to the shadow realm but some people in the dub do actually die; Shadi, Noah, Kaiba’s parents, everyone in ancient Egypt, etc.
Huh, I never really watched the anime, but I've read the manga and there are Shadow Games and Penalty Games, so my impression was always that the Shadow Realm was a specific type of penalty game. My impression was also that the anime butchered the depiction of Kaiba's mind crush from the manga, and did away with a lot of shadow/penalty games, so i had always assumed shadow realm was just a reference to penalty games.
Oh, it's just down the street, next to the Chick Fil'A.
Funnily enough, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's had "The Netherworld", which for all intents and purposes _was_ the Shadow Realm (even in the Japanese version). I'm really not sure why 4Kids didn't just call it that and instead used a new term.
Honestly, with how characters in the Japanese dub bring up Hell, you could pretty much just see the Shadow Realm as actually being Hell/Makai.
Great video ! I hope your TH-cam journey takes off !
Thank you!🚀
@@customcardguy most welcome :)
As someone who writes a lot of fanfiction (not about YGO, mind you...I'm not big-brained enough to creatively write about that series), I can honestly say...yeah, I definitely agree. Writing in deaths of important characters just complicates so many things in a story, ESPECIALLY if it's a longer saga. Honestly, too many important deaths just drag down a storyline as a whole, after a certain point. The Shadow Realm is definitely a happy accident though, along the lines of the 'Spirit Blast', honestly.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. 4kids got it right.
Man, I wish they completed the uncut dub!
The point is, the Yugioh manga and anime are primarily targeted at teenage audiences in Japan. After all, Shonen manga and anime primarily target early to late teen boys between 12 and 18. And the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump is confirmed by now former chief-editor Hiryuki Nakano to be for teen boys since 1968. And the OCG is advertised for ages 12 and up in Japan. Has been since 1999.
Realm of Darkness, Doom Dimension, Netherworld, and Heuco Mundo
0:58 dbz had another dimension lol gotta love these euphemisms. I did feel battle city was craziest between 0:43 Arkana power saw and 2:16 umbra/lumis falling through the skyscraper.
2:45 manga was more horror, mai only had sand in anime hourglass.
I think part of the reason it worked so well is how unique it is because let's be honest, death is cheap in most shows (shonen ones especially), so by having them potentially imprisoned somewhere forever it gives a more plausible reason for their rescue.
That's not to say death and revival from death can't work well as they can but it depends on how often they're used and why.
"The Shadow Realm" also just sounds cooler.
the FCC is super strict about daytime TV so 4Kids kind of had to censor that stuff.
You took the words out of my mouth
My brother and I loved Yu-Gi-Oh growing up and when we learned that the shadow realm was a dub thing, we laughed. Censoring death by sending you to forever hell is just worse lol
Your video SUCCINCTLY addressed my thoughts and THEN some!! Mad respekk fams!! :O
🫡
It's not just nostalgia. From what I understand they worked the shadowrealm into the Japanese source material later down the line too because it was considered to be so good.
Which Yu-Gi-Oh series used shadow realm in the sub
@majesticgothitelle1802 I don't actually know. I have a friend obsessed with the series and literally went on an hour long rant about how good the shadowrealm was to the point it wrapped back into the source material. He has pointed out Itty bitty details no sane person would ever know in the past and knows the deep lore behind the printings of various cards and the related stories in their pictures and flavor text and the ongoing story of them so I don't really have reason to doubt him. Hence "from what I understand" but I don't mind being proven wrong either.
It might have been an anime thing. Maybe a card thing or a Manga thing. Idk.
i did not expect to see chuggaaconroy in the comment
Im banishing you to the shadow realm!
0:46 - "one piece" of censorship :)
I also liked the censorship made 4Kids create the "Shadow Realm." I mean the world if Yu-Gi-Oh is already mystic so having there be a Shadow Realm fits in the series.
I feel shadow realm makes certain characters like Pegasus bit too evil.