The Japanese dub is underrated? What, compared to the dub? W0t?
I literally struggle to view a dub Yu-Gi-Oh clip on YouTube without seeing some comment about how the "dub is trash" or "Japanese version is waaaaay better" etcetera etcetera.
For me at least, the Japanese dub is only better than the 4kids dub in that it's got a richer story and dialogue. A lot of symbolic meaning was
unfortunately taken away through the dubbing process. Much of the dialogue in 4kids Yu-Gi-Oh was either borderline moronic or stale. Yugi's need to "save the world" has been mentioned so many times it gets a little tiresome. Likewise, the idea that someone was being "evil" has been used so many times as a description of a person's motives and actions that it gets a bit boring and meaningless. Similarly, someone having been corrupted by the "darkness" has also been used so many times that it's devoid of any real meaning...
Such as:
"Your mind has been clouded by darkness!"
Yeah, not the most exciting nor the most meaningful dialogue. Doesn't exactly say much.
4kids also added dialogue to scenes which were originally silent. Sometimes this didn't matter too much, but other times, it takes away from the emotion of the characters. It's as if they feel that we are unable to interpret what a character is thinking or feeling and that they need to be more explicit about it. Silence helps to build tone and atmosphere, and unfortunately that was a dumb move on 4kids as well.
As for the censorship, that's not entirely 4kids' fault. They had to follow FCC rules if they wanted to air the show on a certain channel and time (or something like that). Incidentally, that's why the cards in the 4kids dub have all its text removed, because keeping the cards with the same format as the cards from the real life game would qualify as advertising, and that's not allowed under FCC rules. Sadly, this also came at the expense of Mai's boobs.
The concept of the "shadow realm" for me was certainly a lot more interesting than death for me too at least. Apart from the hideously terrible attempts at censoring the possibility of death (e.g. the "dark energy discs," or the 2 on 2 duel between Yugi, Kaiba, Lumis and Umbra), 4kids did a fairly bang up job of coming up with a fate for the characters that is most certainly just as unwanted as death, which is frankly quite cliched in media. The shadow realm was pretty neat in that it allowed 4kids to bypass FCC rules which forbid death, while at the same time being a lot more frightening than death, like it was spending an eternity in hell.
For me, I prefer the 4kids dub largely out of nostalgia and the fact that it's what I'm used to. I much prefer their voice actors like Dan Green as Yugi and Eric Stuart as Kaiba, and frankly I hate Kaiba's Japanese voice. I like the dub music much more as well, it makes everything sound more epic than it originally was.