Duel Masters: Lost Dubbed and Original Japanese episodes

Duel Masters is a trading card game franchise by Wizards of the Coast and Takara Tomy. Originally created as a manga for CoroCoro comics in 1999 about Magic: The Gathering, it eventually transitioned over to having an original card game which became the focus of the anime series. The series has been running strong in Japan for over 20 years now, but was not able to reach the same success internationally for a variety of reasons. Those few years where they were trying to market the franchise globally has led to a lot of lost content.

The very first series ran in Japan from October 21, 2002 - December 22, 2003, with a total of 26 episodes. The sequel series, Duel Masters Charge ran from April 19, 2004 - March 27, 2006. The series would often air in segments on TV Tokyo’s children’s variety show OhaSuta, and would later be reaired as full episodes on other channels. Season 1 had 26 full episodes in total and Charge had 52.

The English dub began airing on Toonami beginning on March 13, 2004, and season 1 would finish on September 4 that same year. It was produced by Hasbro (who owns WOTC and oversaw much of the international release of DueMa) and multiple other studios (switching dubbing studio each season). While it was very common for dubs of this era to be heavily localized for American audiences, Duel Masters pushed its edits to the extremes to make a gag dub, practically making a new show entirely… which they eventually sorta did.

After season 1 wrapped up, they did not begin dubbing Charge right away. Instead, they produced Duel Masters: Sacred Lands. Most websites can’t decide if they want to call this season 1.5 or 2. It was believed to be commissioned by Hasbro specifically for the western audience, and was animated by Studio Hibari, who made season 1 and Charge. It ran in the US from March 26, 2005 - June 17, 2006.

And that brings us too…

Charge’s lost English dubbed episodes:

Duel Masters Charge’s dub, referred to both as season 2 or 3, aired on Toonami beginning on February 4, 2006. Out of the 52 episodes of the original series, only 13 were known to be dubbed. Many of these episodes are only partially found, and according to a reddit thread posted in 2021, may not have actually aired. The only legal streaming service to currently have DueMa is Tubi, and they don’t include Charge at all, ending the series with the final episode of Sacred Lands. Here is a list of what parts I have been able to find (listed by episode number overall in the dub, as that’s what most places list them as):

• Episodes 53-62: available on torrent sites. Of these episodes, episode 55 “Fourscore” is missing the second half (only about 10 minutes of the approximately 22 minute run time)

• Episode 63- Switcharoo- Partially found, 6 minute clip

• Episode 64- Creeptastic- Partially found, clip 1 and clip 2

• Episode 65- Finalitousness- Partially found, 5 minute clip

As for the remaining 39 episodes of Charge, it is currently unknown if they were ever dubbed (or if there were even plans to dub them).

This is far from the only mystery from this time period of Duel Masters. Another one that gets asked a lot is if there is a Japanese version of Sacred Lands.

While there is no concrete evidence, my friend has constructed a list of things that suggest it may have almost had a Japanese release (these are copy-and-pasted from our private discord server):

• The first season of DM leaves off on a cliffhanger so weird that at the end of the vid file for ep 26, it has a note saying "yeah this is the last episode, you're not missing anything"

• SL ep 01 directly picks up from that cliffhanger with content adapted from the manga and segues smoothly into a new arc

• The lipsynching on the Eng dub still looks like a dub. If this season was written in English to start with, there would be little reason to still do this.
  Knowing the weird and awful edits that the US company made, if they had full creative control, SL would come out looking a lot worse visually.
  

• Studio Hibari's staff are still in the credits of SL, including the writers.

• The presence of SL on the international market.

• [requires more research] The handful of characters who showed up in Deathphoenix with the assumption we'd know them ((Post writer’s note: Duel Masters: Curse of the Death Phoenix was the franchise’s first theatrical film released in 2005 and was never released outside of Japan. I have personally not seen this film yet so I am not sure how much of a role these characters play.))

• There is a NINE-MONTH-LONG gap between the airing of vanilla ((Season 1)) episodes 18 and 19 ((on OhaSuta)). I've tried looking into this and have come up with zilch. Something happened that forced the show off air for a while. This is the missing piece.

• There is a four-month gap in Studio Hibari's production history which falls in this gap. This is likely the period when Sacred Lands was being produced.
  This probable production period happens BEFORE Duel Masters hit US airwaves. While it's possible that an extra 26 episodes could have been commissioned to make it a more standard length for international, it's not very likely. There's also a five-month gap between the airing of S1 and SL in the United States (during which time Charge was already airing in Japan). The US broadcast of Charge ended prematurely anyway, so it probably was not doing well enough to commission brand-new content.

• Given the rate at which the manga came out, the anime was in dire need of filler. I also believe that Flash was created as filler while Fighting Edge's manga was going, which would explain why it's been disregarded for so long.