Duel Masters (デュエル・マスターズ) is a multimedia franchise consisting of multiple manga and anime series, a trading card game, and several video games. It began as a manga adaptation of Magic: The Gathering before branching off in 2002.

Plot

The story centers around the card game Duel Masters, which revolves around five civilizations consisting of Fire, Water, Light, Darkness and Nature. The original storyline follows Shobu Kirifuda, a young boy who likes to play Duel Masters. He and a few duelists are known to bring the monsters on the cards to life in their duels. Shobu engages in this card game so that he can be the best duelist like his father was.

Characters

Main characters

Shobu's family

Shobu's friends

Temple Guardians

The Four Temple Guardians (四天衆) are the elite members of the White Soldiers that work under Hakuoh.

P.L.O.O.P.

Short for Powerful Loyal Order of Princes, P.L.O.O.P. is an evil organization that plot to use monsters from the Civilizations of the Creature World to take over Earth. This organization appears only in the 26 episodes which were never broadcast in Japan. Their original names are unknown.

Black Soldiers

The Black Soldiers are a group of duelists that are the opposite form of Hakuoh's White Soldiers. Most of the Black Soldiers consists of duelists that were unable to defeat Hakuoh when wanting to become a member of the White Soldiers. They entered the Battle Arena Tournament to beat all of its players. After the defeat of most of the Black Soldier, most of the unnamed members left the group.

Other antagonists

While brainwashed, her trump cards are Cruel Naga, Avatar of Fate and Super Necrodragon Abzo Dolba. In Duel Masters Cross her deck contains all 5 civilizations and is focused on creatures who have the following effect: "If this card is discarded during your opponent's turn, you may put this card into the Battle Zone instead of the Graveyard". Afterwards, she changes her deck into a Light, Water and Darkness civilization deck based on the Knight race using Brunhilde, Ghost Knight and Nero Gryphis, Mystic Light Emperor as her trump cards. He uses a combination of Fire, Darkness and Water cards (most of his creatures are Zombie Dragons) with his deck being focused on sending cards to the graveyard (his and his opponent's), sometimes outright destroying them, and benefiting from it. Later in the series he changes his deck to a Darkness/Light Knight deck, his main trump cards being Romanoff the 1st, Lord of the Demonic Eye, Death Romanoff the 5th, General of the Demonic Eye, King Balcry, Demonic Eye Lord and Supernova Death Dragerion.

Media

Trading card game

The card game first originated in Japan in May 2002 and was marketed by Takara (later Takara Tomy following the merger). It was produced in English by Wizards of the Coast, who purchased the rights to the name Duel Masters from Reality Simulations, Inc., which ran a play-by-mail gladiator game called Duelmasters, now known as Duel2. The English-language printing of the TCG ran from DM-01 Base Set (May 5, 2004) until DM-12 Thrash of the Hybrid Megacreatures (November 2006). It was the twelfth and final expansion released by Wizards of the Coast for the English-language game before it was discontinued in 2006. The spin-off product, Kaijudo, was announced by Wizards of the Coast in February 2012. A relaunch of the TCG product line with Wizards of the Coast working along with its parent company Hasbro. It was released on June 26, 2012 and was incompatible with previous Duel Master cards. Wizards of the Coast discontinued Kaijudo in 2014. In Japan, the card game is an ongoing commercial success. As of 2024, there are over 90 mainline sets, with new booster sets, starter decks, promotional cards, and more released alongside them. Notable innovations Cross Gear and Omega Aura equip cards; the Hyperspatial Zone and Gacharange side decks; Castle and Field continuous effects; Forbidden and Zero unlockable cards; and other varieties of double-sided and unfoldable cards.

Manga

The Duel Masters manga series is written by Shigenobu Matsumoto, and published by Shogakukan in the CoroCoro Comic magazine. While none of manga series have been licensed in English, there was a North American-created comic book by Dreamwave Productions. The original manga series ran from 1999 to 2005 and was compiled into 17 tankōbon volumes. It was followed by Duel Masters: Fighting Edge from 2005 to 2008 and Duel Masters Star Cross from 2008 to 2011, along with several side story tankōbon. The first 40 volumes of the manga sold approximately 4.5 million copies in Japan. There have been numerous spinoff manga by different authors. These include gag manga, background lore stories, and card playing guides.

Mainline volumes

Anime

The first television series originally premiered in Japan on October 21, 2002, and ran until December 22, 2003. There are a total of six seasons with Shobu Kirifuda as the protagonist. Duel Masters was followed by Duel Masters Charge, which is mostly based on the manga; Zero Duel Masters and its sequel Duel Masters Zero, which are an alternate sequel to the first season and ignores the events of Charge; Duel Masters Cross and Duel Masters Cross Shock. From Duel Masters Zero until Duel Masters Victory V, the series was broadcast in a 12-minute format instead of 24-minute format. A spin-off series, Shinseiki: Duel Masters Flash aired from April 10, 2006, to March 23, 2007. The series follows Teru Yumemi, who must protect the ARC pendant from the antagonistic Nest organization. Duel Masters Victory premiered on April 2, 2011, and introduced a new protagonist named Katta Kirifuda, the younger brother of Shobu. Its storyline follows from the events of the Duel Masters: Star Cross manga series. Victory was followed by Duel Masters Victory V, Duel Masters Victory V3, Duel Masters Versus, Duel Masters Versus Revolution, and Duel Masters Versus Revolution Final. The 2017 Duel Masters anime introduced Joe Kirifuda, the son of Katta and focused on his adventures in the Creature World. It was followed by Duel Masters!****, ****Duel Masters!!**, Duel Masters King, Duel Masters King!, **and Duel Masters King MAX. In April 2020, Duel Masters King was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The anime returned on May 31, 2020. A new series titled Duel Masters Win premiered on September 4, 2022 and introduced the protagonist Win Kirifuda. Unlike the previous Kirifuda protagonists who use the kanji 切札, his name uses the kanji 斬札, and therefore he is not related to them. The series is followed by Duel Masters Win: Duel Wars and Duel Masters Lost: Tsuioku no Suishō. An adaptation of the Duel Masters Lost: Gekka no Shinigami manga series is set to premiere on December 21, 2024. A spin-off anime animated by Plott titled Dragon musume ni naritaku nai! began streaming on YouTube in October 2023. The channel reached over 100,000 subscribers within its first three months.

Overview

Episodes (Season 1)

English version

The English-language version of the series was produced by Hasbro Entertainment and Plastic Cow Productions. It made a truncated four-episode preview premiere on Cartoon Network's Toonami block on February 27, 2004. The series then made its official premiere on March 13, 2004, as part of the Saturday Video Entertainment System block, with fewer edits. When Toonami was moved to Saturdays, the block premiered the rest of the series. It was also aired in a 6:00 AM timeslot on early Weekday mornings, as part of Cartoon Network's Early Prime block, which was aimed at kids who were getting ready to go to school during this time on October 4 to December 31, 2004 and it returns once again on June 20 to December 30, 2005. A second batch of 26 episodes was produced by Hasbro Studios and Elastic Media Corporation and premiered on Cartoon Network on March 26, 2005. Despite being aired some months later, these episodes were considered part of the first season and featured an original storyline not adapted from the manga. While the original animation studio and staff remained the same as the first season, these episodes were never broadcast or acknowledged in Japan. Duel Masters 2.0 was later produced by Hasbro and Howling Cat Studios. It was adapted from the first half of Duel Masters Charge, compressing 26 episodes into 13. The final three episodes were scheduled but never aired. Episodes of the English version are currently available for streaming on The Roku Channel, Tubi TV and Amazon Prime.

Season 1 episodes not broadcast in Japan

2.0 episodes

Video games

Takara, Atari, and Kids Station each produced their own Duel Masters video games. The games by Takara and Kids Station were only released in Japan while Atari's were only released in North America and Europe. Some of Takara's games were published by Atlus.

Reception

Along with The Magic of Chocolate, Duel Masters won the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award for Best Children's Manga in 2021.