With the benefit of hindsight, it's pretty obvious that the original English dubs of a lot of anime series that debuted in the '90s and early 2000s played fast and loose with the original Japanese scripts — changing names, censoring content and altering a lot of the specific details. There are countless examples of such changes in classic series like Pokémon, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball.
At the same time, this era of anime dubs played a crucial role in introducing the medium of anime to an entire continent and do still have a lot of positive nostalgia from the millennial anime fans who grew up watching them. The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is a great example of both sides of this particular coin: although the script was heavily changed in the English dub, that dub kickstarted a franchise that's still going strong.
Based on the manga by Kazuki Takahashi that ran from 1996-2004, the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime follows Yugi Muto, a young expert at the Duel Monsters card game whose possession of a powerful artifact known as the Millennium Puzzle grants him a super-powered alter ego, allowing him to duel with the owners of the other Millennium Items and powerful monster cards that threaten to destroy the world.
Crunchyroll describes the series like this:
"Meet Yugi and his best buds Joey, Tristan and Téa. They share a love for the newest game that’s sweeping the nation: Duel Monsters!
Legend has it 5000 years ago, ancient Egyptian Pharaohs used to play a magical game very similar to Duel Monsters. This ancient game involved magical ceremonies, which were used to foresee the future and ultimately decide one’s destiny. They called it the Shadow Games. Since the game used so many magical spells and ferocious creatures, it wasn’t long before the game got out of hand and threatened to destroy the world."
Yu-Gi-Oh! is both genuinely compelling and unintentionally hilarious
What most English-speaking fans would recognize as the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is actually the second anime adaptation of the original manga. However, since the first anime adaptation from Toei was never released outside of Japan, the English dub of the second Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series was the first exposure most fans had to the franchise.
Again, it's obvious — especially now that there's more awareness of the original Japanese version — that the English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! changed a lot. For a quick run-down of some of those changes: most of the characters had their names changed, numerous monsters had their art redone to remove occult or religious references, the dialogue was rewritten almost entirely (though there are some genuinely funny ad-libs from the English cast), guns and other weapons were airbrushed away, references to killing or death were changed to "sent to the Shadow Realm" (which still sounds pretty bad) and Joey's (Jonouchi in Japanese) English voice actor gave him a New York accent.
Weirdly, the first English dub of Sailor Moon — dubbed in Canada by a completely unrelated studio — also dubbed the main character's best friend with a New York accent.
Although the English dub did create a lot of weird moments not present in the Japanese script, some of the most ridiculous aspects of the series's plot are so inherently baked-in to the story that the alterations made by the English script really add or subtract to the series's weirdest moments. Notably, the infamous episode where Yugi wins a duel by using his Catapult Turtle to shoot one of his monsters into his opponent's floating castle so it crashes down onto all of his opponent's other monsters plays out basically exactly the same in both versions.
Now, maybe it's not entirely unexpected that there would be some unintentionally hilarious moments in a series predicated on a card game that's apparently powerful enough to determine the fate of the world — notably, the series can't seem to make up its mind if the Duel Monsters game is just a card game or a fight between actual monsters. That being said, Yu-Gi-Oh! is still enough of a standard Shōnen series that the action is impressive enough for that admittedly ridiculous premise to lead to some genuine intensity and exciting action.
Where to watch Yu-Gi-Oh in 2025
Given the series's popularity — enough to lead to several spin-off and sequel series — Yu-Gi-Oh! is pretty easy to watch via streaming.
• On Netflix, you can watch the the well-known Yu-Gi-Oh anime series from the early 2000s.
• On Crunchyroll, you can watch the Yu-Gi-Oh! (with select episodes available in the Japanese version), Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V series.
• On Tubi, you can watch for free with ads the same series in the franchise as on Crunchyroll, along with Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie and sequel to the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! the Dark Side of Dimensions.
• On Amazon Prime Video, you can watch Yu-Gi-Oh! (but only from Season 2 onwards), Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains
Also, the original Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V manga series can be read online on Viz Media's Shonen Jump website and app.
However, as is usually the case with streaming series, not all content will be available on every service in every international region.