Trivia / Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds

• Actor Allusion:
  • Thinking back to when Yusei ordered milk at a bar, guess who else did the same in the music video of RUN&GUN's "Believe"?
  • Aki is a possible case of this for her voice actress, Ayumi Kinoshita. Look her up on The Other Wiki and one of her few other roles is Jasmine of Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, who also has psychic powers.
• Anime First: While the original Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal both had a manga before the anime, 5D's took the GX route and did not get one until over a year after the anime premiered.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Notable examples of celebrities starring in this show are actor/singer Yuya Miyashita as Yusei and model/actress Ayumi Kinoshita (who's better known as Marika 'Jasmine' Reimon/Deka Yellow) as Aki.
• Channel Hop: Despite both Duel Monsters and GX being a huge hit in Latin America, Nickeloden decided to cut off their contract with Konami (apparently, this was beacuse they weren't seeing any money from merchandise sales so they didn't saw the point in airing the series anymore) so 5D's had to air on ZAZ, another children's channel in the region. Sadly, ZAZ wasn't available in many cable operators and 5D's became a huge flop in the region. The dub only lasted 52 episodes before being cancelled.
• Contest Winner Cameo: Yusei's Drill Synchron and Drill Warrior, Aki's Splendid Rose, Jack's borrowed Demon Chaos King, Ruka's Rose Bird, and Rua's Deformer Cleanen are all winning fan-created designs.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Both Rua and Lucciano are voiced by women.
• Defictionalization: Jack's 3000-yen Blue-Eyes Coffee was actually sold in real life at a themed cafe hosted in 2016 for the franchise's 20th anniversary. It also came with a free sandwich, so unlike him you're actually getting your money's worth.
• Distanced from Current Events:
  • The tornadoes Placido created in his duel with Yusei are completely absent in the dub, due to the then recent tornado disasters in the Midwest.
• Executive Meddling: In the manga version, the initial planning stage would have given Yoshi, Crow's younger brother, a twin sibling of his own, but the idea ended up scrapped when the editorial decision dictated that said twin sibling was unnecessary. This was revealed in an omake dedicated to Yoshi.
• Irony as She Is Cast: While the dubbed versions of series in the YGO franchise reusing voice actors is nothing new, 5Ds really seemed to be trying to maximize the irony of its casting as much as possible:
  • Dan Green, the voice of none other than the original hero(es), now voices Trudge, who starts out as a villain.
  • Greg Abbey went from voicing Tristan, part of the Greek Chorus who gets called out for lying about being some champion duelist when he's not even a duelist at all, to voicing the hero and champion in every dueling tournament.
  • Ted Lewis, formerly known as the gentle, soft-spoken Bakura, now plays the series' Kaiba counterpart — Large Ham, Badass Biker and former King of Games Jack Atlas himself. Though this isn't as extreme as the other two, as he also voiced Alister, Kaiba's Evil Counterpart who also rode a motorcycle.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: For the dub version, since 4kids lost the license to it. Thanks in part to no DVD dubbed releases outside of a few Australian DVDs and the online streaming episodes at Toonzai and Hulu that may be removed.
  • As of 2015, this is FINALLY not the case.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • In America, Reverse Of Arcadia, one of the video games that roughly follows the entire Dark Signer arc, was released before the last four episodes of said arc were dubbed. This spoils Divine's second death, Rex becoming a dual Signer, and the entire DS finale for dub watchers. Oops.
  • Not to mention the Heart birthmark, which Rua would receive over a year later in Episode 142. ^note Reverse Of Arcadia was released in Japan the day after Episode 97 had aired over there.
  • Dark Signer Godwin appeared in WC 2010 months before they did in the English anime, as well as a few minor characters in early Season 3. The same goes for Crashtown Kiryu in Tag Force 5.
• Meme Acknowledgment: This little image on 4Kids' site references CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES!
• No Export for You:
  • The OVA, which debuted the game's new Buster (Assault Mode in the TCG) cards.
  • 4Kids has now chosen to skip dubbing Episodes 111-122, and to not dub any episodes after 136, so they can move on to Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered, such as the identity of the being who gave Yusei his Shooting Star Dragon, and what the Divine Temple (Ark Cradle in the Japanese version) actually is. The prior episode skipping also means Jack simply pulls Red Nova Dragon out of his ass with no explanation during the duel with Team Ragnarok. Luckily, 4Kids has indicated they will release the undubbed episodes subtitled on Hulu.
• Out of Order: In the dub's airing on the CW, the CW skipped over the episodes 36-41. Therefore the dub watchers missed out on Yusei's recovery, Carly's death, Carly becoming a Dark Signer, Divine disappearing and thought to be dead, Misty's first appearance, the Aracadia Movement building getting wrecked, and Aki's Heel–Face Turn. Since they skipped over many important plot twists and details, many viewers were left confused.
  • Of course, anyone with access to YouTube could easily watch them, and 4Kids did air these episodes on their website.
  • They did it again by skipping over episodes 111-122 straight to Team 5D's duel with Ragnarok, leaving confusion as to how Team 5D's made it to the semi finals, how Jack obtained Red Nova Dragon and Sherry's disappearance.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Very late in the series, Carly's season one voice actress, Li-Mei Chiang, was discovered to be a member of the Roma Sophie Association, a self proclaimed psychic cult that was at the time under investigation by Japanese authorities, due to the cult leader and his wife physically abusing a member who'd been forced into setvitude. This led to her being fired.
• Screwed By Network Collapse:
  • While the original Japanese airings avoided this, getting a consistent time slot and never going on hiatus, the dubbed American airings weren't so lucky. First appearing on the CW Saturday morning block, its timeslots constantly changed around, airing as early as 7am or as late as almost noon. It also went on hiatuses often, and refused to air certain episodes due to sensitive content. Finally CW stopped airing it since DM proved to get better ratings. 5D's did a Channel Hop to Cartoon Network, but its problems didn't end there. Episodes aired at 8am on weekdays, a time when most of the target audience would be attending school. New episodes updated randomly and one had to check the 4kids website to find the latest episodes. Oh, and streaming episodes are only available for Americans. And then the 8AM timeslot was reserved for reruns of Pokémon. Back to the CW.
  • Due to a major lawsuit filed by TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems for a debt exceeding $4.5 million, 4Kids had to stop the dubbing process in its tracks and file bankruptcy. It's a rare, wild case where a network didn't exactly screw the program- they lost the rights and resources to air it. Though others say the decision not to dub the rest of the episodes was made by 4Kids independent of the lawsuit so they could move on to dubbing ZEXAL.
• She Also Did: Misty's Japanese voice actress, Junko Minagawa, has been well know for her work in voicing other characters in many other anime and other media, including Ryoma Echizen, Ion Fortuna, Ada Wong, Sailor Uranus, Joan of Arc, Oz Vessalius and Cornelia li Britannia.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Carly's Japanese VA from Episode 130 onwards was replaced, due to an unrelated issue that caused her to quit.
  • Crow's voice switched from Christopher C. Adams to Tom Wayland starting in Episode 94.
  • Rua (Leo) and Ruka (Luna) were both originally voiced by Cassandra Morris from episodes 12-64, but are now voiced by Eileen Stevens from episode 65 onwards and the 10th anniversary movie after Morris moved away from New York to California and unable to constantly travel between both States.
  • The Latin American Spanish dubs of this iteration of the ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' franchise and everything related to it were done in Colombia instead of Mexico due to monetary reasons. The Duel Monsters and GX dubs were made in Mexico due to Konami having the money thanks to Nickelodeon. 5D's didn't have the extra funding so they had no to choice but to move the dub to Colombia, where dubbing is cheaper.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In Takahashi's original design notes for Crow, he's considerably more morally gray than his series counterpart, described as constantly trying to steal Yusei's D-Wheel and always failing (and then befriending Yusei at some point).
  • The original fifth signer and his dragon◊.
  • It was originally planned for Rua to get his Signer Dragon during the Dark Signer arc, likely during his one and only duel. Why it has changed is unknown, but it has been suggested that Crow was inserted into that plot instead when the original idea for him was scrapped.

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