Episode 030: VS Darkness (Part 2) - The Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon’s Attack/S1E30: Doomsday Day (Part 2)
In this post, I'm going to review and compare the subbed and dubbed versions of Yugioh GX episode 30. This one is going to depend a lot on how you enjoy your Yugioh experience.
Episode Review
The episode starts off with an establishing shot and a taunt from Darkness/Nightshroud. Judai retorts claiming he's having fun with the duel, while Jaden trash talks a bit. When Judai pulls the Fusion Undone/De-Fusion play, the dub cuts a peanut gallery line from Asuka explaining the strategy.
After direct attacking, Judai and Jaden both comment on Darkness/Nightshroud's lack of flinch, though Jaden turns it into a joke both in the moment and later on. Darkness cites it as a benefit of the duels of darkness, while Nightshroud uses it as a springboard for trash talk.
The dub adds some quips to Jaden's Mirage of Nightmare play and Nightshroud’s following turn. Shou and Hayato staying strong for Judai is changed to a dig at Syrus. Jaden has a minor pun leading into the Tempest fusion. After that, Nightshroud's Chazz side rears its head again:
Judai: And that's a comeback! Darkness: The flow of battle means nothing in a Duel of Darkness. Which of us is standing when all is over... That is everything!
Jaden: There's that flinch I was lookin' for! Nightshroud: No, it wasn't. That was a twitch. It's not the same! I had something in my eye, that's all, you got that? It was a twitch!
Seriously, tell me that isn't a Chazz line. Similarly, Darkness's edgy dragon dialogue leading into Red-Eyes Black Chick is turned into more trash talk.
Darkness: It is my turn - I draw! I hear them... The spectral voices of the dragons resting in my Cemetery as they whisper to me... They yearn to use their scorching flames to incinerate this land once more! Allow me to call forth the ultimate dragon that will fulfill that desire!
Nightshroud: Ha! You chump. Life Points don't decide who's winning the duel. ...It's the cards you hold. And if you don't believe me, I'm quite certain that this one here will prove it to you! Did you honestly think, Keykeeper, that you could get rid of all my dragons so easily? That you could simply banish them all to the graveyard and then be done with them?
And then finally!!! Nightshroud gets some edgy dragon lines, which I think is a step up from sounding like Chazz every other line:
Darkness: The shrieks of my dragons deep within the earth will become my Darkness Dragon's flesh and blood. My Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon's ATK will increase by 300 points for every Dragon-type monster in my Cemetery!
Nightshroud: Now the molten ashes of my fallen dragons boil up from their fiery graves, ablaze with new life, each granting my Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon additional attack points!
Darkness talks again about the terror of darkness, while Nightshroud reminds Jaden (and the audience) of the duel stakes. The dub cuts some peanut gallery reactions as Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon attacks.
Outside, people react. Kaiser quietly contemplates the volcano:
Kaiser: I feel it…
While Zane is much more talkative:
Zane: Hmm. There's something amiss. A Shadow Rider. This key's telling me… One's close.
Misawa's line is the same between versions. Ojama Yellow is actually dancing in the dub, where in the sub his quivering is just mistaken for it. The dub also adds a few extra "hmmm"s from the teachers. Samejima/Shepard remind the audience of the objective, and Shepard reminds you of the stakes while he's at it.
Back in the volcano, Nightshroud has a joke about deep frying as he reminds everyone of the hostages. Shou and Hayato telling Judai to focus on the duel instead of worrying about them is changed to....what else, a Chumley fat joke about French fries. They do add a better joke about his dad's hot sauce to follow up, though "better than a fat joke" isn’t exactly a high bar.
The duel resumes, with minor quips on both sides added in the dub. After destroying Tempest, Nightshroud taunts Jaden where Darkness ends his turn.
When Asuka intervenes, she gives her name in the sub and that's how Darkness recognizes her; in the dub, she doesn't give her name so Nightshroud recognizes her face instead. Judai tells her not to take such an intense duel from him and he's still got cards to play, while Jaden claims he's about to win. Asuka is concerned; Alexis calls him delirious.
We get another Chumley fat joke, because the French fry thing clearly wasn’t funny enough the first time. The dub adds a quip to Wildedge’s summon, and the duel finishes out without further notable changes.
When everyone wakes up outside the volcano, Shou worries about Judai and Asuka worries about Shou/Hayato. Syrus instead comments on how they're still alive, and Alexis confirms that Jaden won. When they spot Judai, Shou worries and Asuka is relieved to see he's injured but alive.
Shou: Big Bro, stay with us! Big Bro! Asuka: He's really bruised up, but it looks like he'll pull through… Hayato: Judai…you got like this because of us… Shou: Big Bro! Asuka: Judai…
In the dub, Alexis instead brushes off Syrus's concern because he's alive, why is he panicking? Another potshot at Chumley, and the same gag repeats: he's alive, Syrus, why are you so upset? Stop being unreasonable, Syrus.
Syrus: He's not moving! Come on, Jay! Alexis: Sy, he's fine! Tired, maybe, but who could blame him? Chumley: Not me. I'm tired, and I didn't do a thing. Syrus: Jay! Don't do this! Why?! Why?! Alexis: He's okay.
Once the other keyholders arrive, the dub tries to make the French fry thing a full running gag. On top of another “licious,” that’s a swift +2 to the fat joke counter!
Kaiser is concerned about Asuka, while Zane looks for the fallen Shadow Rider. Asuka explains that Darkness's soul was taken to leave his host's behind, while Alexis skims over that for the moment and focuses on "It's him! He's back!" Which isn't unreasonable, honestly, given she's just found her missing brother after watching her friend fight evil in a volcano.
As the sun rises, the sub leaves everyone silent and relies on tense music to communicate that everyone is processing the shock of discovering Asuka's missing brother and the heavy toll the first Seven Star duel has taken on Judai. The dub instead has Alexis give a quick explanation of how Atticus got left behind, and Zane spells out the message for the audience:
Zane: And if this is how it is after you win a duel...just think what it's like when you lose. The sun may be coming up now, but night will fall again soon. And when it does...we must be ready.
The delivery of this line falls flatter than it could, too, largely because the script tries to cram this whole monologue into the shocked silence on top of trying to cram Alexis’s last-second explanation of the soul-sealing mechanics into the same space. As a result, none of these lines are given time to breathe. Zane’s monologue especially feels both rushed and flat, like a kid trying to finish their class presentation script when they realize the teacher’s just given them the signal indicating they have a minute left.
I don’t usually critique performance but this was just so wild to listen to I felt it was worth bringing up. Tell-don’t-show approach aside, I think the whole thing would have been fine if they hadn’t tried to shove so much dialogue into the amount of time they had. Instead, even when the dub wanted me to take things seriously I couldn’t help but laugh for the wrong reasons.
And that's game! Gotcha!
Spoiler Zone
Empty!
Final Thoughts
Chumley slander counter: 4 fat jokes, 1 miscellaneous potshot.
Part of my discussion about Darkness vs. Nightshroud in the previous episode was about the tone the show wants to take for this arc, as conveyed through these last two episodes. Darkness isn't exactly the most compelling villain but he at least communicates a vibe: we're dark now. There's danger. We've toyed around with duels of darkness/shadow games and now they're going to be our bread and butter as we try to prevent the end of the world.
The dub doesn't want to linger on the danger. Sure, it'll remind you that we're fighting against the end of the world and that Syrus and Chumley will get cooked if this duel takes too long, but there's the usual quips and trash talk - I stand by the opinion that Nightshroud's dialogue is mostly indistinguishable from Chazz's - and they certainly don’t skimp on the requisite Chumley fat jokes. The dub’s avoidance of the original serious tone feels really obvious at the end, where everyone is concerned about Judai's well-being in the sub and the dub tries to play it off as - haha, look at Syrus, he's so stupid because Jaden is merely exhausted and not dead! What’s there to worry about?
And then they try and have Zane tell you at the end, actually that was bad! It's going to get worse! And you can have a debate about whether having Zane basically look into the camera and say That's Bad And We're In Danger fulfills the same purpose as letting everyone's silence speak for itself, but I think it's hard to argue that they're kind of inconsistent on the tone given that two minutes earlier the tone was "why is Syrus so hysterical."
You could argue that the Seven Stars arc itself is inconsistent in tone (Darkness and Camula to the Dark Scorpions or Abidos to Amnael) so like. The dub isn't inaccurate in doing this, honestly. But for the start of this arc in these past two episodes, the sub wants to emphasize that things are going to get darker and it uses both Darkness’s character and building tension to drive that in. The dub does just about what it has been for the past two dozen episodes, and then makes up the difference at the end with Zane. Whether that’s welcome levity or unwelcome bathos - or something else in between - is up to the viewer.
