We don't always like being nonplussed

Friday, June 22, 2012

The King Game: Fight Against Demons (Episodes 1-4)

By now I think we're all familiar with Backstroke of the West. If not, you'll probably enjoy going here and reading this, then watching this on YouTube.

But if you don't feel like clicking, here's the short version: Backstroke of the West is a bootleg of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith with subtitles added by the bootleggers, who translated the movie back into English from Chinese. Hong Kong has always been a source for inexpensive and highly unauthorized DVD releases. Typically anime were the easiest to get in the USA since the companies responsible for the US rights for those shows didn't have access to epic-level lawyers the way companies like Fox and Lucasfilm do.

Yu Gi Oh! was pretty infamous for having been heavily edited by 4Kids for its US broadcast. There was a store in the mall- one that was later shut down for selling modchipped Xboxes pre-loaded with copied games -that had the first season of Yu Gi Oh: Duel Monsters for about $15. So hey, worth a look, right?


Worth every penny in fact, just for the subtitles.


He probably has Strongth welling in his body too.


Uh, if you say so.


Joey/Jounouchi's name is Shingnon. At least it is now. Names are pretty fluid in "The King Game- Fight Against Demons." Kaiba is sometimes Kaiba, sometimes "Seahorse," sometimes "Seahouse." Yugi is sometimes Yu Gi, or sometimes "Game," which is fairly literal. But somebody clearly used find/replace to make that happen, because we sometimes get Yu Gi where the word "game" is clearly meant.


I hate when that happens.


Game is a pretty cool guy. Eh plays cards and doesn't afraid of anything.



I don't know how accurate this caption is, it's just amusingly creepy.

Oh, and speaking of names, here's what Pegasus' name translates to:


And lastly for now, Insector Haga and Dinosaur Ryuzaki(Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor in Japanese):

I'm only to episode 4. There's at least one more screen I want from this, and hopefully I'll have it next Friday!

2 comments:

  1. I just wanted to stop by and say "YESSS!". I also had a local anime store which had these DVDs (I bought them all as they came out).

    Unfortunately these very worst subtitles changed in later DVDs but they still had their own problems. I remember the "you are not taking the shower alone" bit a lot because it was hilarious as well as creepy. I dunno if the song has anything to do with showers, but the title at least kind of implied it. Of course, I don't know any Japanese so I have no clue what "Genki no Shawaa" is supposed to mean.

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  2. It probably does- "Shawaa" sounds like katakanafied English. I did notice the subs gradually improving the farther into the series I got even on this first boxset- not sure if that makes me happy or sad...

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