As a fan of Yu-Gi-Oh since I was just a little kid I’ve always been enamoured with the OG series.
Those cards and characters have really stuck with me over the years so I jumped at the chance to speak to Dan Green, who’s voiced Yugi Muto/Pharaoh Atem for over 25 years. My chat with Dan discussed the history of these iconic characters and how they’re still so popular today, headlining the release of the Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection that launched last month for Nintendo Switch and PC.
See the trailer for Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection below
To kick things off I’ve always wondered what it’s like to voice a character for so long that you’ve essentially become that character. Does it ever get old to have people associate you with a role you did so many years ago, or have people asking you to recite your most famous lines?
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Dan certainly doesn’t think so, saying: “It never gets old … I often compare it to literally returning to old friends, right? These are characters I've lived with and through some of the most important parts, most meaningful parts of my life. It's a wonderful combination of being able to embrace the characters, but then now seeing the impact of the show, embrace what it means to other people you know, and over that kind of 25 year history with the character.”
The conversation then shifted to some of the examples of fan interactions Dan has had over the years, ranging from the hilarious to the heartwarming Dan recounted times when fans have shared how Yu-Gi-Oh helped them with times in their life, like getting bullied at school, and “how it was helpful to see a character work through that, or live through that.”
“I recently met a guy,” Dan continued, “who used to be a bully, and the show taught him not to do that anymore, right? So those are wonderful things, and you can never anticipate how people receive something that you are a part of. I've often said I was just trying not to get fired, meaning I was just trying to do the best job that I could do, and to see that, you know, it's impacted people in so many positive ways, it’s incredibly rewarding.”
Now voice actors are in the recording booth for a long, long time. Yu-Gi-Oh’s first animated iteration ran for over 200 episodes, so an extraordinary amount of time will have gone into reading the lines, doing multiple takes and re-recording when necessary. With that in mind you can forgive them for wanting to have a little fun during production, and Dan shared a very humorous tale where he managed to sneak in a bit of ad-lib into one of the episodes.
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In order to fill some empty audio space the cast were allowed to just make something up, and during a scene where our heroes are cooking Dan said “just so we have something to put in there … off the top of my set, I said, ‘Hey, Joey, I don't think we're supposed to cook the candy bars’ And then, like a trooper, Wayne [Grayson] comes in later in the day and he says something like, ‘shut up. I know what I'm doing.’ It was a perfect retort.”
As for some of his favourite lines from voicing Yugi, Dan said “‘Exodia, Obliterate’ will always hold a special place in my heart, because that's when I first started to get the sense of where the show might go and calling upon these ancient powers, you know, was really compelling to me, and I was already into Egyptology. But if I had to choose one line, I think it would have to be ‘believe in yourself and you'll always prevail.’ I like a line that you can use outside of the context of the show, and the way that I interpret that line, it's not that you're gonna win every time, but that believing in yourself is the first step to your next victory, and you have to, you have to give yourself that that much faith so you could win.”
In addition to iconic lines, there are also plenty of iconic cards, so I asked if Dan could select three cards from Yugi’s deck that he’d place into his own, as well as three from his rival’s deck, Seto Kaiba.
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“Okay, okay, so, Exodia” Dan began after I generously said he could have all five pieces of Exodia as one card, “but you gotta have Dark Magician, right? A lot of people ask, What's my favorite card? And I generally say, due to the characters that I portray, it's gotta be Dark Magician, you know?” His final pick was Slifer The Sky Dragon, because you have to have an Egyptian God Card in there right? As for Kaiba’s cards though…
“Gotta get Blue Eyes White Dragon, right? Also Obelisk The Tormentor, I think is just a cool sounding card, and let's see, what would make him [Kaiba] especially angry? Oh, if I lifted his Kaibaman card!”
One topic I really wanted to touch on during this interview is the longevity of Yugi as a character, and how despite not appearing in any animated series he’s still very much the face of the franchise. He’s also a great comfort character to many, as well as a welcoming face to new players who are only just getting into Yu-Gi-Oh, both through the TCG and video games like the Early Days Collection.
Speaking on fan reception to his character and his place as a comfort character, Dan said: “I'm thrilled if I fit that category. What a wonderful thing to be. I know that, yeah, I had grown up on different stuff, but I have my comforts that I go to and yeah, if I can be included in that, I am honored … “it’s great if I can be an emissary of any kind, especially with something that really has a lot of heart to it, like Yu-Gi-Oh.”
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Yu-Gi-Oh is still as popular as ever, and hopefully the recent launch of the Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection has gotten more people into the TCG. While I’ll always stay up to date with what’s new and evolving with the game I’ll always have a place in my heart for the OG format, purely due to memories of watching the anime.