| Multiple Topics: JD's Review for "The Shadow Games: Uncut" and What The Heck is Shonen Jump Thinking? |
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Hey all! I know that you have already bought the uncut DVDs, but... well, if you
haven't... I can't find a gun so I'll shoot ya later.
I have bought the first Yuugiou DVD, "The Shadow Games". First and foremost before we delve any further, that is a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE title and whoever thought of it should be shot to hell. Next, the art on the DVD. It's very sleek and sophisticated, not just slabbed on. Obviously, someone took some time to do this, and 4Kids doesn't have much of it. They're dubbing Pokemon, Shaman King, One Piece (ouch), even Naruto is going to be dubbed by the evil empire, or so I've heard. With all that under their belt, and mostly the same computer designers for all of it, I didn't think they could churn out a DVD cover as good as the one that they made. They did it, though. I got it in the mail via the folks at Overstock.com (great website, people, it has THE lowest price for the uncut DVDs around, only $13 bucks) today as I came home from hellhole.. erm, I mean school. Eager with anticipation, I run inside, open it, have a bit of trouble getting the frikkin thing open but I did, and popped it in the XBox. Mistake. No, not that the DVDs are bad, I can't control the DVD through the XBox remote that I have! I was thinking that this DVD was plagued from the start. Because of this, I used the other DVD player downstairs and tried my luck. No TV picture. I was about fed up at this point, when I realize the controller behind the TV was turned... to XBox. Once I turn it to DVD Player, I re-popped it in. It worked! I was all ready to begin playing it. It was set to the dub with English subtitles. I know deaf people watch these DVDs, however I found this rather amusing that it was set to English with some more English on top. I changed this at once to the Japanese audio track. And so, the beginning of the first episode began. How cool! The original Japanese prelude with the original Japanese theme song. As the episode continued, all the dramatic music and everything was kept. This is extremely important for the defeat of Kaiba, the near death of Sugoruku, and the summoning of Exodia. Without some nice dramatic music, no edits, and good timing, it just doesn't treat the scene well. Episodes 2 and 3, while not as important, still hold special meaning. Pegasus retains his loony character, however I think his voice is just... better in the TV dub. (Gasp!) They kept all of Mai's dialogue intact. Insector Haga's average Japanese VA is 100x better than the horrible dub one in the beginning. The subtitling is up to par. I can't say it's the best out there, I've seen DBZ DVDs with much better subtitling. (Maybe because Steven Simmons, a DBZ fan like you and me, was a subtitler for those.) What discouraged me about the sub was that "Joey's" New Yorka characteristics were kept in the subtitling, and there were about 50 instances of HotC and Shadow crap. Since they've said "Black Magic", I think they could say "Dark Games" instead of "Shadow Games". Just a beef. I just decided to play raw Japanese, no subs, to get the full effect. Anyways, now that I watched all 3 episodes in sub form, it was time to pop in the dreaded dub and see how it fared. Eh heh. I noticed that the prelude narrator is different, and better, than the TV narration of the prelude. The Japanese theme music was kept, as expected. Now, onto the voices. As for Yuugi Mutoh/Yami no Yuugi- One person does the dueling AND the thinking, even in the uncut dub. The voices are the same, no different than they are on TV. Same for "Joey" with that irritating New York accent, and that won't go away in the near future, at least. Next, Pegasus J. Crawford. His dub character was as cool and cartoony as ever, and of course, is the only voice IMO that's BETTER than the Japanese VA. Next, we have Insector Haga... I mean Weevil Underwood. It is as dreadful as ever. No change there. As for Kaiba, well it was more... compassionate in Episode 1. I mean he actually sounded semi-human! Mai Kujaku's English VA has been changed for some reason. Ms. Hollingshead is not the Mai VA for the uncut dub, however she's changed her style in the TV show. Instead of a bitchy 24 year old, she sounds more caring in the DOOM saga dub. That's getting off the subject, though. Honda's sounds pretty good, since we don't have Mr. Congested anymore as the Honda dub VA. Anzu's dub VA is the same, but it sounds MUCH better when she's held to Japanese-length lines and doesn't give speeches. :) Sugoruku Mutoh sounds the same in the dub DVD as he does in the TV show. The bottom line is that 4Kids did a GREAT, GREAT job with this uncut DVD. I can't believe I'm complimenting 4Kids, but yeah. It's great. ---- Next topic. Shonen Jump, as some people know, is making the decision to jump ahead to the Memory Saga now that pre-DK has wrapped up. They are releasing ALL the other previous sagas as the manga booklets. DK and Battle City are going to be rushed to the printer, whereas the Memory Saga has been rushed to a monthly spot on the magazine. Why? I have a theory. Yuugiou as a LONG, LONG series, especially in the manga. We're talking LONG. The Memory saga was excruciatingly long, however it is the best series in all of Yuugiou. The reason why is because Yuugi spends this time trying to find his past. When he does, there is a final battle between Atemu and Yuugi Mutoh. I won't spoil who wins, but that duel DOES end the Yuugiou manga. In other words, Viz realized that they weren't going to finish the entire Yuugiou series for about 10-12 years, maybe more, and that's why they are speeding it up. Granted, the Memory Saga is going to take about 4 years to completely get through by itself. As you know, in Japan "Shuiesha Jump" is weekly. They can churn Yuugiou out faster, and it STILL took a good nine months to finish off the saga! 120+ chapters of the Memory saga, and going at 3 per month, it's going to take.. one hell of a long time to finish Memories. Viz will wind up putting the whole damn series in books at the rate they're going, because it's going to take quite a while to get through this final saga. Oh, and they still have GX to worry about! It's been out for a while now, and by the time they finish Memories, they'll have 80+ chapters of THAT! See what I mean? On a related note, has anyone done the "Where's Yugi" contest? I sure have. I want a signed poster of Yuugi! I encourage you to do it before the January edition comes out. Oh yes, and the Memory Saga begins on the January edition, probably preluded by a huge note saying "It would take 10 years to start plowin' through DK and so on, so we just decided to cut to the good stuff!" NEXT TIME: A couple of huge big announcements for our Second Anniversary Editorial in the Miscellaneous section. Yes, you'll have to wait till January to find out what those announcements are! |
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