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4Kids Stops Streaming Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters
posted on by Egan Loo
The North American licensing and distribution company 4Kids has confirmed that it had to stop streaming all episodes of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters anime with Japanese-language dialogue on the YouTube website. According to 4Kids, "these Japanese-language episodes will not be seen in any format (online, DVDs, VOD, etc.) moving forward" due to a rights issue in Japan. The American version of the same series, which was known in English simply as Yu-Gi-Oh!, is still available.
4Kids did announce that it will stream the unedited Japanese-language episodes of Sonic X with English subtitles on the Hulu website "in the coming weeks." Similarly, it will add the unedited Japanese-language episodes (with English subtitles) and English-language episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's on YouTube this fall. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX will follow in Japanese with English subtitles. The company says that Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters' rights issue does not affect the English-language versions of that series or its other current series.
4Kids began streaming the Japanese episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters this past March. It then streamed an English-subtitled preview clip of Sonic X in July.
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