Not to mention Duelists of the Roses, a full on tactical board RPG where the Yugioh cast were roleplaying as the major figureheads of the War of the Roses, with the player character being isekaid back in time to help either side win the war. Some of it was kinda cool, like a full board game based off of Dungeon Dice Monsters, and a full video game for the GBA alongside it.
Yugioh has consistently been a giant pusher for merchandise as well, and while most of their merch now is just pandering to fans of the original Duel Monsters and/or pushing their new waifu card art, we also had tons of merch in the original era of Duel Monsters (the name for the first and most iconic anime series that ran from 2001 to 2006 in the West, the one with Yugi, Kaiba, Joey, the God Cards, etc). I'm not just talking about the card game or the anime either. This is that story.Īs I said, Yugioh was a juggarnaut franchise in the 2000s. However, it would only stave off the inevitable, and a few short years later, 4Kids would go bankrupt and Konami would buy them out. What would follow this would be a court case that seemed a slam dunk for TVTokyo, but their own assuredness in victory would grant a loophole victory for 4Kids. Suddenly, 4Kids was caught in a lawsuit by none other than their own bosses in Japan who created the Yugioh show, alleging that 4Kids had pocketed millions of dollars in merch profits- and they wanted their pound of flesh back. Oh and also there was the whole business with the One Piece dub that got covered here recently by /u/RadarElGato which was also a giant black mark on the company, but that's largely unrelated to this post.īut around the time that 4Kids were closing in on ending production for the dub of the third Yugioh series, 5D's, things would take a turn for the company.
I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to say that a lot of the sub vs dub puritanism that still permeates the anime scene comes down from people getting salty at 4Kids and thinking anime dubs are still just as much of a censored mess. While it wasn't all dour and the dub would give us moments such as Eric Stuart's iconic turn as the saltiest chad of all time in Seto Kaiba or Dan Green's bombastic performance as Yugi Muto, the reputation of 4Kids was always contentious within the anime scene.
Yugioh was simply far too dark for Western TV networks to sign off on an uncensored depiction, leading to many moments losing impact in translation. While Pokemon would overall get away with its content largely kept similar outside of particularly crass moments, Yugioh would be impacted more heavily, particularly as Yugioh frequently strayed into darker subject matter like the obligatory moment in every series where someone commits mass murder and/or genocide. regarding how the shows would be Westernised, leading to such moments as the Pokemon Jelly Donuts. Scenes with firearms and violence were often paired down, more adult content would be censored and there was an element of. 4Kids were tied firmly to the standards and practices of the children's cartoon block, and what Japan considers OK for childlren is very different from what America considers alright. However, their dubbing was also contentious for other reasons. Their impact helped make Yugioh and Pokemon juggarnaut franchises, playing a key role in "Pokemania" for the latter. It's undeniable that potentially the entire scene around Western fan culture for anime can be traced back to 4Kids. If you ask many children of the 90s and 2000s what their first anime was, Pokemon, Yugioh, Shaman King and many of the other properties 4Kids localised are easy answers. For many, it was their gateway into anime as a wider scene. 4Kids would do so well off the 90s anime boom that in 2000, Fortune magazine ranked them #1 in a "fastest growing companies" list.Īnime fans in the 2000s and the early days of the Wild West Internet had mixed thoughts on 4Kids. This became a wing of the company which was focused on anime dubbing for the Saturday morning cartoon circuit, which was about to enter its swan-song period in the 2000s before streaming services began to kill the traditional television block. Realizing the value of franchises like Pokemon and Yugioh that were starting to make major waves outside of their native Japan, 4Kids gained the licensing rights to the anime adaptations of these properties. 4Kids Entertainment was a company with a long history, but the important thing to note is that in the 1990s/2000s, they struck gold.