took me years to figure out that "Giant Trunade" (which was "Hurricane" in Japan!) is what you get when someone tries to turn トルネード back into its English counterpart but has no idea that 1. "tornado" is a word or 2. it's ultimately derived from Spanish
Dark Crisis (aka the JP 304/305 boosters) was maybe the most important set to come out back in those days because it was a speeding freight train in the face of their slapdash "anything goes" approach to card localization
suddenly all those デーモンs they'd blithely trampled on were IMPORTANT, whoops
"Terrorking Archfiend" shook out of it though, which i'd call an improvement over "Genocideking Demon"
ngl i totally respect the choice they made there; "genocide" isn't a word you want to just slap on card names as if it's cool, plus it doesn't roll off the tongue
some of the things they did were definitely overboard, like their removal of "religious symbols" catching ankhs as well, but 1. we got the better artwork for Monster Reborn as a result and 2. it was very much appropriate in cases like Spellbinding Circle
Comments
funny choice to render Ōkaji like that, they were just asking for kids to mispronounce it. oldschool YGO localization was wild
like i absolutely get the drive to "keep the names exotic" but at times it just smacked of sheer perversity
and a loc team at Konami Japan operating with almost zero pushback from native English speakers
The brain geniuses at Konami:
suddenly all those デーモンs they'd blithely trampled on were IMPORTANT, whoops
ngl i totally respect the choice they made there; "genocide" isn't a word you want to just slap on card names as if it's cool, plus it doesn't roll off the tongue