Duel Masters returns on October 9 with none of its 30 entries free here. Six card-game neighbours are the opposite
Card-game and battle-toy anime is one corner of the medium where the publishers post whole runs themselves. We counted 144 entries across nine franchises to see how unevenly that holds.
By Theo Grange · AnimeSphere staff · August 22, 2026
Duel Masters LOST: Danzai no Shounen will begin on October 9. Anime News Network reported the date, and its summary line says a visual and returning staff were revealed with it. We already carry the entry: its page is titled "Watch Duel Masters LOST: Danzai no Shounen Online", and it states no free episode count.
The census under nine names
144 entries in our catalogue carry the name of one of nine trading card or battle toy franchises: Bakugan, Beyblade, Battle Spirits, Cardfight!! Vanguard, Duel Masters, Future Card Buddyfight, Monster Strike, Shadowverse and Yu-Gi-Oh!. Films, shorts and promotional videos sit in that number alongside television series. All 144 pages were fetched today and all 144 returned HTTP 200. Our pages compute the free episode figure for the visitor's country, and every figure here came from a United States request.
Fifty of the 144 state a free episode count. Ninety-four state none. By franchise, entries first and pages stating a count second:
- Future Card Buddyfight: 6 and 6
- Cardfight!! Vanguard: 27 and 15
- Beyblade: 19 and 11
- Monster Strike: 16 and 8
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: 14 and 7
- Bakugan: 13 and 3
- Duel Masters: 30 and 0
- Battle Spirits: 15 and 0
- Shadowverse: 4 and 0
Every Duel Masters entry we hold states no free episode count, including the four entries in the ongoing LOST line.
Three runs to start now
CARDFIGHT!! VANGUARD Divinez is recorded here as 13 episodes from 2024, tagged Action, Adventure and Fantasy, and its page states 13 free episodes, which is every episode we record for it. The channel is CARDFIGHTVanguard, which carries a YouTube verified badge. Each episode is posted twice. Episodes 1 and 13 were opened today in both forms. The plain uploads report an automatic English caption track, meaning the audio is English. The uploads whose titles open with "[Sub]" carry an authored English subtitle track alongside an automatic Japanese one, meaning Japanese audio with real English subtitles. Those four run 1,595, 1,605, 1,595 and 1,595 seconds against a recorded episode length of 24 minutes. The upload titles read Episode 1 and Episode 13, matching the numbers we store.
Future Card Buddyfight is recorded as 64 episodes from 2014 and its page states 64 free episodes, again every episode we record. The channel is Future Card Buddyfight Channel, which does not carry a verified badge. Episodes 1 and 64 were opened today, both reporting an automatic English caption track, so the audio is English. They run 1,495 and 1,467 seconds against a recorded 25 minutes, and those two titles read Episode 1 and Episode 64, matching the numbers we store.
Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL II is recorded as 73 episodes from 2012 and its page states 73 free episodes, every episode we record for it. The channel is Official Yu-Gi-Oh!, with a YouTube verified badge. Two uploads were opened today, the first and the last of the run, and both report an automatic English caption track, so the audio is English. They run 1,272 and 1,349 seconds against a recorded 23 minutes. The channel numbers its uploads as a continuation of the previous series, so those numbers do not line up with ours.
Every row we hold for all three carries an unrestricted country list.