Censorship is worse when they make it cringe.
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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Its both. People were straight up killed often, but Yugi did use a power called "Mind Crush" all the time which basically was a the "shadow realm" thing anyway.
So like, original Kaiba had his soul literally sent to the Shadow Realm which left him in a coma until he "solved the puzzle of his heart" (which the Mind Crush shattered) and that's why he went from absurdly evil to kinda evil but obsessed with cards, and then after the second Mind Crush in the very first episode of the anime turn into just an anti-villain.
But then there was Arkana, who in the original just had saw blades come out if you lost that would chop off your legs and you'd bleed to death. The Dub changed it to magical shadow blades that would send your soul to the shadow realm.
So the concept was there, and Yugi in the "season 0" before Duel Monsters took over the show would alternate between outright killing the villains or shattering their mind depending on circumstance. So he did actually "send people to the shadow realm" in a way, but only some of the times.
So the dub instead turned all the try-hard grim and edgy killing and torture into instead over the top cringe wacky shit that was much more fitting for the concept of a card game anime. Which as an end result, makes for a much better watch imo.
Point being, censorship can at least not create irredeemably awful products if its still being done with soul and creativity. Its still not a good thing on principle, but we can still enjoy it.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of an "anti-villain." I'm familiar with "anti-hero" but never the villain variant. So like.. an anti-hero does good things with generally selfish intent, so an anti-villain would be.. uh.. he does bad things, but with the best intentions? That just sounds like a buffoon, but with a nicer spin on it. A Mr. Bean if you will.
Anti-hero is what I should have said, but I typed that up an hour where I wasn't fully awake and didn't catch that in a proofread. My bad.
Though if I had to I'd call an anti-villain someone who exists entirely to "punish the evil doers" An actual anti- to villains. He has no noble goals and doesn't care about the innocent or doing anything good, just hurting villains. That decouples it from being a foil to anti-hero, but it sounds better to me because that sounds like an interesting character.