Changes in the Viz translation

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Viz Media is responsible for the translation of the manga (graphic novels) of Yu-Gi-Oh!, which spans 38 total volumes. However, they have made a variety of mistakes along the way, and many fans have expressed an interest in knowing how the Viz translation compares to the original manga. It's also interesting to note what changes are made by almost all Japanese manga translators, while some changes are exclusive to Viz and/or the Yu-Gi-Oh title.

Contents

Changes made in almost all American-distributed manga

Most standard manga measure much smaller the standard graphic novel distributed by Viz, Tokyopop, etc. in the United States and other English-speaking countries. The Viz distributions of Yu-Gi-Oh are 12.6 x 19 cm (4.96" x 7.48"), while the original manga (distributed by Jump Comics) in tankoubon format are 11.2 cm. x 17.6 cm (4.41" x 6.93"). This means that the images are stretched out from their original size. Also, since a different type of paper and cover is used, images and text that are printed closer to the binding are often harder to see/read in the English version, because it can't be laid down flat or spread out as well.

In recent years, distributors like Viz have adopted a "Manga done the right (to left) way" ethic, where the images are no longer reversed so the book may be read in the standard English left-to-right format. Instead, they publish the manga in the same direction as the original Japanese, meaning the images don't have to be reversed. This also means that English readers have to get used to reading "backward" and looking at the comic speech and thought bubbles in the opposite directions of how they may be used to.

The dust-jacket covers seen on almost all Japanese-release manga are also removed and instead imprinted on the cover of the graphic novel itself. Viz used to print their own covers, rather than the original Japanese ones, and their covers tended to be quite thick and coated with a wax-like protective layer. Now, they have adopted the use of a thinner, more cardstock-like cover, with the original Japanese art (typically) on the cover.

Changes made by Viz only

Viz has been in the manga distribution industry for much longer than many other companies including Tokyopop (formerly Mixxzine/Chix Comix), Dark Horse, ADV, and others. They have an established base of changes that they tend to make for titles, and Yu-Gi-Oh is no exception to that rule. If you know of any changes that are specific to Viz titles (including Yu-Gi-Oh!, Naruto, Rurouni Kenshin, etc.), then please include them here!

Changes made to Yu-Gi-Oh! specifically

Yu-Gi-Oh has had a variety of changes made to it, many of them considered "mistakes" by seasoned fans. Some of the changes span the entire manga, while others are volume-specific.

General Changes

Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally distributed by 4Kids animation before it was licensed by Viz as a manga title. Much of its popularity was attributed to the show being syndicated on Kids WB! in the United States, and YTV in Canada. For that reason, Viz used the tagline "Including scenes too startling for TV!" on the back of almost all their released copies of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga. However, the manga debuted before the anime in Japan, and the anime was actually originally done by Toei before NAS picked it up, and 4Kids edited and dubbed it for television. The original Toei animation was actually closer to the original manga storyline (up to the start of Duelist Kingdom), while the NAS-produced anime barely covered the original 7 volumes of the manga at all, instead picking up the storyline from Duelist Kingdom and moving on from there. However, the NAS-anime still has a variety of differences from the original manga, as does Viz's translation of the manga.

Yu-Gi-Oh! was also more than halfway through its Japanese run before Viz picked it up for licensing, and despite using Yu-Gi-Oh! in the English version of Shonen Jump (known as Weekly Shounen Jump in Japan, the magazine in which Yu-Gi-Oh! was initially serialized), they opted to release the graphic novel format concurrently with the chapters in the Shonen Jump magazine. Yu-Gi-Oh! was initially released much slower than many of Viz's other titles, and when Shonen Jump decided to skip ahead and release what they call the "Millennium World" (Dark RPG) arc, they broke the Yu-Gi-Oh series up into 3 distinct parts:

The card names used throughout the manga are occasionally translated to the names used for the English TCG. Sometimes these names differ wildly from what most would consider an acceptable translation of the Japanese, and other times, the Japanese is not translated at all. For example:

  • The Japanese manga called Isis' power card "Reverse Worlds" (lit. Reversal of the Living World and the Spirit World), but for the English TCG, the card was named "Exchange of the Spirit," the same name that had been used in the dub episode of Battle City in which Isis' card appeared. Thus, "Exchange of the Spirit" was used in Viz's translation of the manga.
  • There are several cards that do not exist at all in the English TCG, so it is left up to Viz whether to translate the name of the card and how. Often, anime episodes use cards that never make it to the TCG either, and those names are used. One example of such a card is "Mukou," which translates to "Invalidity" or "Nullification." The card doesn't exist in the English TCG, so when the dub opted to keep the Japanese name, so did Viz, rather than use an English translation of the name.

The back of all the Yu-Gi-Oh manga include a comparison guide, pointing out the differences between the Japanese names of cards and the English names, often featuring images of the real English TCG cards, if they exist. However, this section has been known to have a few mistakes as well:

  • Another of Isis' cards, which was translated as "Sword of Dogra," was said to not exist in the English card, but it does-- as the "Cestus of Dagla." The image of the card is the same, and it bears a very similar effect to the effect in both the anime and the original manga.


While the Viz translation initially kept the original names of the manga characters, they opted for a different romanization system than is used by most translators (amateur or fan translations, most typically), and they also used the dub animation names for many characters and monsters, which differed from the original Japanese manga names. Please note that some of the names listed in the table below are the same all the way across a row. That means no changes have been made to the name at all in any of the English-translated incarnations of the series. Please also note that the "original Japanese" names are listed in Western format, meaning given name followed by surname (family name).

Certain characters are referred to by their surname (family name) throughout the entire series. Some of these characters include Jounouchi (given name is Katsuya), Honda (given name is Hiroto), Otogi (given name is Ryuuji), Kajiki (given name is Ryouta), and Kaiba (given name is Seto).

Names that are foreign to Japanese (such as Malik) have their original Japanese pronunciation in parentheses, even though the name (being of a non-Japanese origin) would not really be pronounced or spelled that way EXCEPT in Japanese.

Changes made to character names in the Viz translation of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga
Original Japanese English Viz Translation Dub animation name
Yuugi Mutou Yugi Mutou Yugi Moto
Yami no Yuugi (Dark Yuugi)/Mou Hitori no Yuugi (The Other Yuugi) Yu-Gi-Oh (King of Games) Yami Yugi/Pharaoh
Anzu Mazaki Anzu Mazaki Téa Gardner
Katsuya Jounouchi Katsuya Jonouchi Joey Wheeler
Hiroto Honda Hiroto Honda Tristan Taylor
Shaadii Shadi Shadi
Ryou Bakura Ryou Bakura Ryou Bakura
Seto Kaiba Seto Kaiba Seto Kaiba
Mokuba Kaiba Mokuba Kaiba Mokuba Kaiba
Mai Kujaku Mai Kujaku Mai Valentine
Dinosaur Ryuuzaki Dinosaur Ryuuzaki Rex Raptor
Insector Haga Insector Haga Weevil Underwood
Pegasus J. Crawford Maximillion J. Pegasus Maximillion Pegasus
Ryuuji Otogi Ryuji Otogi Duke Devlin
Malik Ishtar (Mariku Ishitaru) Marik Ishtar Marik Ishtar
Rishid (Rishido) Rishid Odion
Isis Ishtar (Aishizu Ishitaru) Ishizu ("Ee-shee-zoo") Ishtar Ishizu Ishtar
Shizuka Kawai Shizuka Kawai Serenity Wheeler
Kalim (Karimu) Kalim Karim
Shada Shada Shada
Akunadin Akhenaden Akhenaden
Mahaad (Mahaado) Mahado Mahado
Isis (Aishizu) Isis Isis
Bobasa Bobasa Bobasa

Yu-Gi-Oh! (original volumes 1-7) changes

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist (original volumes 8-31) changes

  • Mokuba almost consistently refers to his older brother Seto Kaiba by the wrong name/title. In the original manga, he calls Seto "Big Brother" (lit. Honorable Older Brother; [O]nii-sama), but in the Viz translation, he calls him "Kaiba" (their adopted surname), and occasionally by his given name alone, "Seto." There are only a few occasions when he properly calls him "Big Brother."
  • Isis Ishtar's name is incorrectly romanized as Ishizu. This would lead one to believe that Viz thinks the original name was meant to be pronounced the same as the dub, "Ee-shee-zoo," though in the original Japanese, the name is the Japanese pronunciation of the Egyptian name Isis (Aishizu in romanization, or Eye-shee-zoo pronounced). But Isis is Egyptian and her name was chosen with particular care; this particular change removes all meaning behind her name. Ishizu is neither a Japanese nor an Egyptian name.
  • The same naming mistake that was made with Isis was also made with her younger brother, Malik. His name in Japanese can be romanized as Mariku, but that is because the Japanese "r" sounds fall in between the English "r" and "l" sounds. As a result, many names with "r" are thought to be "l" but not always. In this case, it most assuredly should have been, as the name Malik is Arabic in origin, and ironically means "King," (the same way that Yuugi is a pun on the word "game").
  • The name "Rare Hunters" was thought up by the dubbers at 4Kids. In the original manga, Malik's lackeys are known as the "Ghouls." Sometimes the names are used interchangeably throughout the manga, as when Kaiba refers to them in his duel against Isis (Vol. 19, pg. 31).
  • The term "Yami no Geemu" is incorrectly translated as "Shadow Game," (Vol. 19, pg. 13) which further adds to confusion created by the dub, which introduced a fictional realm known as the "Shadow Realm." In the original manga, there are no "Shadow Games" or "Shadow Realm," but "Games of Darkness" or "Dark Games" Those who lose Games of Darkness are subject to a penalty (the early manga called these games "Penalty Games," a popular term in Japanese). Most often, the penalties take the form of severe mental anguish, such as Dark Yuugi's Mind Crush that he performed on Kaiba after their duel at Death-T, which left Kaiba in a comatose state, constantly having nightmares.
  • The name of Isis' Millennium Item is consistently incorrectly translated as "Millennium Tauk," when the item she holds is really called a torque. This is partially due to an error in the Japanese manga, which used the wrong furigana (the Japanese characters beside Chinese characters, called "kanji") for the item. The style of necklace Isis wears is a "torque," commonly found in Egyptian and other North African cultures, and is romanized in the Japanese as "toruku," rather than "tauku." Because of the incorrect romanization, Viz also incorrectly named this item, ironically choosing NOT to adopt the dub name for the item, which is "Millennium Necklace."
  • There are several instances in which Isis, Rishid, Malik, or Shadi says something of the lines of "for a thousand years." In Japanese, the word "sennen" means "thousand year," but the more apt translation is often "millennium." (Hence the name "Millennium Items" rather than "Thousand-Year Items.") However, Japanese doesn't have plural nouns the way English does, and in many of these speeches that Yu-Gi-Oh's Egyptian characters make, it is more likely that they are trying to say "for many millennia," and refer to the thousands of years that have passed since Dark Yuugi was Pharaoh and the Tombkeeper Clan had reason to be established.
  • Kaiba's power combo involving the Crush Card and similar cards include a card called the Virus Cannon, which does not exist in the English TCG. It is inappropriately labeled a 'Virus Card,' when there is no such type card in the game (in any of its incarnations). Not even the trap-card Crush Card was appropriately given its type, unlike other cards, such as Spell Cards. Furthermore, the card-translation section in the back of Vol. 19 says the Crush Card is called the Deck Devastation Virus in the English TCG. However, the Deck Devastation Virus is an entirely different card, with a different effect and different art; the card shown in the manga is indeed the same Crush Card in the English TCG, although there it is called the Crush Card Virus. The card in the TCG known as Deck Devastation Virus was originally called the 'Deck Destruction Virus of Magic.' In the original Japanese, the Crush Card is called the 'Deck Destruction Virus of Death.' In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Movie, Kaiba added another Virus card to his collection; the trap card Deck Destruction Virus, with all-new art and a new effect. The card does not exist in the TCG or OCG.
  • In Vol. 19, on pg. 80, Isis' face-down card "Mukou" features a hooded figure with a star on its hand. While face-down, it has six points, resembling the Jewish Star of David, but when it's revealed face-up (pg. 92), the star has five-points. In many anime episodes, the five-point stars (used for many spell cards, or the summoning of special monsters) were edited to add more points.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World (original volumes 32-38) changes

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