"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

A Vengeful Bommer – The Sorrowful Trap, Chariot Pile

Everybody, listen! (or at least everyone interested anyway OTL)

A bit later than I’d hoped, here’s dub-uncut!5D’s episode 21!

So, to catch people up, the official Spanish YGO channel on YouTube flubbed a few uploads of the 5D’s dub such that they ended up uploading a few episodes of the English dub instead of the Latin American dub (21-29)–but with none of 4Kids’s background music! Which meant that I could swoop in and re-insert the original Japanese soundtrack (which I did by matching each track to how it was looped in the episode), but I wanted to do more by also tweaking the dub itself so that not only was it matching the original footage, but the dialogue was more in line with the original dialogue timing-wise (since I couldn’t salvage much of what they changed).  Hence, the “dubbed uncut” gimmick here.

This one was… interesting.  First off, there’s how I had to figure out how to handle the cold open recap, since 20 wasn’t accidentally uploaded BGM-less.  Looking into vocal isolators, I came upon PhonicMind.com and did a test with a quick clip from 20, and it came out surprisingly well! So I got together the audio I needed into one file which I ran through PM and added it into the episode, as seen here.

As for the episode proper, well… While the duel stuff was handled about as you’d expect at this point in 4Kids’s 5D’s–actually, a bit better than average there, tbh–the plot-relevant stuff was… ugh.  They made it so the Staffer who calls up Bommer as he’s reading the email about his village instead calls up “Goodwin’s office” and is surprised to see Greiger there, who’s now “hacking into his files,” edits, in-your-face dialogue, and all.  Since I can’t exactly revoice the Staffer, I had to at least keep that, but I eliminated the in-your-face dialogue so it’s more implied that he’s in there–though as you’re watching this, you should still know it’s Bommer’s own room.  Likewise, I rearranged some of the later dialogue when he’s telling Yusei about his village and mentions the hacking to get around that “hacking” thing.  I also went ahead and translated Bommer’s computer screen to help compliment the dub-uncut thing, though it was a pain getting one of the close-ups cleaned while still keeping the perspective D: And I also thought I’d translate the Key Card sponsor bit since Crunchy still keeps them for some reason, after I cleaned up the Japanese in Photoshop.  Consider it a look at how I’d sub 5D’s, haha.

Speaking of vocal isolating, I also went and sampled some other audio to isolate: I grabbed Rally’s lines from episode 3 to vocal-isolate and echo for the flashback because Rally’s flashback line as-is had the SFX they use for the whooshing-to-and-from-flashback transitions in the dub, and as there’s only a fade as the flashback ends… Related, I also sampled Yusei’s line about summoning Turbo Booster from episode 65 to give it a proper explanation where there should be one, and I nabbed part of the dub’s Junk Warrior chant from episode 87 to throw in.  Let me know what you think about these; I didn’t think they were crazily jarring, but I’m sure you might notice it sounds a bit off compared to the rest of Yusei’s lines here, lol.

Some other modifications I made include recycling one or two “It’s my turn!” lines from Yusei and Greiger for either accuracy or ease in tweaking the SFX to match the original more, using some Duel Links audio for Yusei to the latter effect (Yusei’s “My monster attacks you directly!” to replace “Send his LP to the scrap heap!” over a split-screen SFX), adding a “Whoa!” or two from the MC from a later episode to match JP!MC a bit more, tweaking a later Greiger line to make for an effect explanation, moving a Greiger line to where there wasn’t one thanks to a break to a Card Showcase Interruption, and tweaking some Yusei lines from a later episode for an effect explanation or two.  I also had Yusei shout “Greiger!” as he rides up to stop him from going for Goodwin to match JP!Yusei; dub!Yusei just shouts “No!” which ehhh. 

The music recreation wasn’t too bad, though it did take me a bit to speed up Enemy Attack to match the episode’s use of it at the beginning.  Hopeless Battle does work here, but I still wish we had the official version 😭 I’ve already shared the properly-sped Hopeless Battle on NAC, but I’ll also share this version of Enemy Attack when I post this there.  I also did an alternate take on the Bommer scene at the end where, since “Rage” sounds a lot like “Standstill” from GX, I thought I’d see how it worked.  The answer: surprisingly well!

Overall, happy with how this came out, but lemme know what you think, folks! Going back to work on GX 44 now to get our Amnael showdown started; I’ll probably be doing 45 and 46 shortly after since it’s probably my favorite Season 1 duel.  Then I’ll work on 5D’s 22.  Stay tuned!