Duel Masters

The anime is based on the manga of the same name by Matsumoto Shigenobu, published in the monthly magazine Coro Coro Comic, itself adapted from the collectible card game of the same name.

Since there was a six-month gap between the manga and the anime, the cards used in the manga could not be used as-is: they had to be replaced with cards on sale at the time of broadcast, which according to author Matsumoto Shigenobu represented a heavy workload for the animators.

In March 2006, production of the "Charge" series was abruptly halted due to poor sales of the card game and the merger of toy manufacturers Takara and Tomy, which forced the series to end with the same tragic ending as the first part of the manga.

The "Flash" series (2006) inaugurated a completely new universe with a new protagonist, which would be due to the period of adjustment of rights related to characters following the merger of Takara and Tomy into Takara Tomy.

Starting with "Duel Masters Zero", characters began to be represented using computer-generated imagery with toon shading rendering, a first for the series, which was also the first to air on the BS Japan channel.

For the "Victory" series, unlike the previous ones, the production chose to advance the anime and manga in parallel: author Matsumoto would submit a plot outline to the animators, on the basis of which the characters' decks and the card release schedule were then developed, a process that Matsumoto described as very satisfying in terms of universe coherence but extremely exhausting to execute.

The broadcast of the 49th episode of "Cross Shock", scheduled for March 12, 2011, was postponed by one week to March 19 due to special news programs following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, also delaying the final episode.

The opening theme "Limitless" performed by K-pop group ATEEZ for the "WIN" series was the first time a Korean group composed an opening for the Duel Masters franchise, and this track reached number one on the Billboard Japan Hot Animation chart on March 29, 2023.

In the "WIN" series, the universe of previous series (from the original version to "King MAX") is treated as fiction within the anime itself, in the form of a fictional manga attributed to a certain "Matsumoto Nobushike", a parodic wordplay on the name of the real author Matsumoto Shigenobu.