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Who's the kid with the spiky hair?
(This review is based off the English dub.)

Duel Masters is a card game based show that aired on Cartoon Network 2004-2006, at the tail end of the original Yu-Gi-Oh's airing. Yu-Gi-Oh's popularity certainly influenced it being dubbed, but how good a show is it on its own?

Even having no interest in card game anime at the time, I ended up watching this as it was airing. The nostalgic cast was what originally caught my ear. There were a lot of familiar and talented VAs who seemed to have fun and do a great job here. But I stayed for ... the dub script. Was it a parody? Sort of, depending on how you define parody. This dub still followed the plot and advertised the card game per the original design. Those in charge of the English adaptation perhaps had similar thoughts to who dubbed "Ghost Stories", the dub of which was also released around the same time, that not taking the dub seriously could spice up an otherwise bland show.

So they added a lot of humor. Though I haven't seen the original, it's apparent much of it was dub rewrites. Characters regularly break the fourth wall, hang lampshades on anime tropes, engage in unneeded monologues, poke fun at character designs, make pop culture references, and have various other humorous quips and exchanges. Overall, it was pretty amusing, and I kept watching. I was even convinced to check out the card game.

However, it became dated pretty soon. Why? In July 2006, the month after the English version ended, LittleKuriboh started posting Yu-Gi-Oh abridged to YouTube. Not only was YGO abridged free and instantly available to anyone with an internet connection, but it had edgier humor and could cut large portions of the long card game sequences. For anyone who wanted card game anime humor, that was where to get it. Even though I liked Duel Masters, watching it after YGO abridged, it dragged. I quickly forgot it, probably along with many others.

Now more than a decade later, Duel Masters has also been made available streaming, so I decided to watch it again. I can recognize the same as I did at the time, it's a fairly generic card game anime that doesn't say much or develop its characters much. But it's still fun. The dub specifically is funny, laugh out loud funny at times, and it's also fun to watch Shobu run around and play his card game. It's a light, humorous show, slower paced than anything "abridged" but faster paced than other card game anime. It's relatively short and worth checking out if one likes card game anime and/or silly dubs.

Though this rec is regarding this 26-episode dub in particular, not the franchise as a whole. The various anime sequels I haven't seen, and seem impossible to find even to anyone who might want to watch them. The English version after episode 26 is an English language original that seems to lose something as it completely changes the voice cast and tries to write its own story instead of having fun with existing material. Luckily, this show can stand alone.

Imagine you lived in total isolation in a bomb shelter from other human beings for most of your life. Then you see a girl you like and end up leaving to join the rest of society for her. Are you going to be able to recognize subtle unspoken social nuances and gradually get to know this girl, build a relationship with her and others you've not before had the opportunity to interact with? Or are you inevitably going to mess it up a person who never grew up learning complex social rules that others take for granted? The latter of course, and that's both the ... comedy and the tragedy of this series. Add not just the fact of personal isolation, but also that our main character Techno is a super genius with access to weapons of mass destruction, and you get a very dark comedy here.

So if you like dark comedy with zany anime antics, which I do, this is a series to watch for sure. I was somewhere in-between gawking and laughing out loud at how inappropriate Techno was for much of the series. It's not without its weaknesses though. I think the series may have been stronger if it focused not just on Techno and his love interest Hitomi, who he nicknames "Daisy" like in the title, but how he interacts with others when going out into the world. I really don't think he got called on his behavior often enough. Hitomi seems to be the only one who will say anything more often than not. He's very mean to Yamakawa X, his classmate who tries to show himself as a tough rebel but is ultimately an insecure character ignored by his peers. X is another appealing part of the series for me, but he didn't end up getting his own character arc.

The romance itself is not very strong, so I wouldn't watch it for that. Instead, laugh or cry at the suffering and antics of Techno and anyone who has the misfortune to come across him.