Anime / Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS

Rush!! Forge your own Road to victory!

Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS (遊☆戯☆王 ＳＥＶＥＮＳ, Yū☆Gi☆Ō Sebunsu) is the sixth anime spin-off in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise premiering on April 4, 2020. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters anime metaseries, it was announced with the teasing phrase "the history of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series will change".

In Goha City, where everything from schools to card games is heavily regulated by the Goha Corporation, fifth-grade student Yuga Ohdo aims to follow his own path - his own "Road" - to bring fun and excitement back into his life. His latest "Road" is a custom ruleset for the popular Duel Monsters card game, which he feels has become overburdened by complex rules and mechanics.

After hearing an urban legend about a "King of Duels" from his friend Tatsuhisa Kamijo (aka "Luke"), the two boys discover a strange stone monument guarded by a holographic Duelist. Impressed by their resolve and enthusiasm, this mysterious Duelist uploads Yuga's new ruleset to all of Goha City, and offers them the chance to become the new King of Duels: by following the Road known as "Rush Duels", and revitalising the Dueling world!

SEVENS introduces the "Rush Duel" format, a soft reboot that aims to greatly streamline and simplify Duel Monsters (following on from the Speed Duel format introduced in Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, and the format used by Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links). In addition to using a new card format that can only be used in Rush Duels, the rule changes include (but aren't limited to): the number of Monster and Spell/Trap Zones is reduced from five to three, the one-per-turn limit on Normal Summons is removed, players always start their turns with at least five cards in hand, and all monster effects have a once-per-turn limitation to keep things straightforward.

Marking the second studio turnover in the history of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series ^note The first anime series and movie were produced at Toei Animation, while all entries from 2000-2019 were done by Studio Gallop., SEVENS is animated by Bridge. Nobuhiro Kondo (Shōnen Ashibe GO! GO! Goma-chan, Sgt. Frog, Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation) is the director, Toshimitsu Takeuchi (Shōnen Ashibe GO! GO! Goma-chan, Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, elDLIVE) is the composition writer, Masahiro Hikokubo is once again overseeing the duel layout, Hiroshi Yamamoto (Jewelpet: Magical Change) is the sound director, and both Kazuko Tadano (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon) and Hiromi Matsushita are the character designers.

The series is succeeded by Yu-Gi-Oh! GO RUSH!! in Spring 2022, and also focuses on the Rush Duel format.

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This series contains examples of the following tropes:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The world is one with advanced A.I.s being common in all sectors of life, yet the main cast only seems to use more mundane technology in comparison, barring Yuga.
• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: CGI is used for certain Aces as in previous entries.
• Aborted Arc: The series seems to setup Yuga Goha as a major villain, but after the effects of his use of Monster Reborn on the main cast are reversed, he drops in relevance and pulls a hasty Heel–Face Turn, and the Big Bad crown switches to Otes. His minions, the Ladybug ninjas, also have no further relevance even though they were hinted to have ulterior motives.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council:
  • Gakuto and the twins possess great responsibility over the student body, and act as the main authority within Goha 7th Elementary. Gakuto's authority is Downplayed, as he's generally a Reasonable Authority Figure, but when he tries to use his position to get an article insulting "Rush Duel" taken down the Newspaper Club accuse him of censoring the truth.
  • Averted with Goha 6th Elementary, as the local Heavy Cavalry Duel Club are explicitly stated to hold more authority than them.
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Even though Yuga only just invented "Rush Duel", everyone has cards built around that format, even in flashbacks. Since Yuga envisioned the format because he felt the game proper was stale, it's implied he designed it to work well with already existing cards.
• Ace Custom:
  • Romin is gifted a Duel-Guitar by Yuga for use in both music and dueling, which also holds a snack dispenser for when she gets hungry. Princess G is later shown to have one herself during her duel with Romin.
  • Sebastian has a built-in Duel Disk with a notable difference in design compared to other characters.
  • The Goha Siblings also have custom Duel Disks that change color to their respective Attributes when active.
• Action Girl: Romin. Prior to befriending Yuga, Roa had taught her how to duel and it shows she's no pushover once she starts using her real deck.
• Action Mom: Mimi acts as one of the Tops of Hexagon, a spy, and a skilled duelist while being a loving mother.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Downplayed in regards of Yuga. He's an kid with a genius intellect, though he still has his moments of acting his age.
• Adults Dressed as Children: Mimi spies on the main gang by acting as an elementary student, something she can achieve due to her youthful demeanor.
• Affably Evil: Though not evil, Mimi shows both respect and care for Yuga due to him being the same age as her own son. Played Straight with Roa who though respectful toward his opponent is a more antagonizing force by nature.
• Affirmative Action Girl: Female characters from the previous series were often not given as much opportunity to duel as the main protagonist. SEVENS breaks this trend by having the main female character duel more while progressively introducing more female characters into the cast. Some standouts include:
  • Romin, who not only had an impressive record early on, but had also defeated one of the main characters (Gakuto), the main protagonist, (Yuga), and one of the main rivals (Roa).
  • Asana, who was the main antagonist during Goha 6th Elementary arc, defeated Yuga in her debut duel.
  • Tiger, who is the only named character known to have defeated Luke.
• Alliterative Family:
  • The Kirishima cousins are named Romin and Roa.
  • The Goha Siblings, Yuro, Yujin, Yuka, Yuran and Yuo. Coincidentally, Yuga follows the same naming theme, which causes Mimi to suspect that he's the sixth Goha Sibling.
• All-Loving Hero: Yuga never fails to show compassion and respect toward everyone in the show.
• All Your Powers Combined: A variant occurs between Yuga's group when they create a new Maximum Monster born from their ID cards.
  • In one episode, Asana incorporates the ace monsters of the other 3 Machine Cavalry Club members into her deck, resulting in a powerful new dueling style that allows her to easily defeat Neiru.
  • The final duel against Otes sees Yuga with all of his friends' ace monsters through the trap card, Perfect Sevens.
• Anime Theme Song: "Nanananananana" was written with lyrics referencing the show and its concepts.
• Arc Number:
  • SEVENS is obviously associated with the number seven, not only due to it being the seventh main entry in the franchise, but also because the Duel Disks in "Rush Duel" mode are shaped like a "7".
  • By contrast, Goha Corp has a numerical motif of 6, based on their hexagonal logo, six-infraction limit, use of Number of the Beast in their time limits, the six Tops of Hexagon, and the six Goha Siblings who are the true heads of the company. There's also Goha Dueling Rules Chapter 6666, Article 6, which states that a duel must continue in the event of unpredictable, uncontrollable circumstances which change one duelist's deck, which ends up saving Yuga in his duel against The☆Lukeman.
• Arc Villain: In comparison to previous series, SEVENS has 13-episode arcs, each with their own antagonist:
  • Roa Kirishima, a competitor with Yuga for the "King of Duels" title, is the main antagonist of the "Birth of Rush Duels" arc.
  • Nail Saionji, a young inventor who steals Kaizo's data to force Yuga to participate in duels against his henchmen with their accounts at stake, is the main villain of the "Maximum" arc.
  • Asana Mutsuba, one of the few female main antagonists in the franchise and the first antagonist to outright despise Rush Dueling, is the main villain of the "Goha 6th Elementary" arc.
  • The antagonist of the "Team Battle Royal" arc is the anonymous person who suggested the idea for the Goha Rush Duel Team Battle Royal, distracted everyone by feeding Goha 66 false info, and tried to uninstall Rush Dueling entirely. It's eventually suggested to be none other than Otes, but they refuse to confirm or deny so.
  • Goha 6 Siblings are the true presidents of Goha, but within the siblings, Yuo stands out as he is the one that wants to take over Goha by himself. Things get complicated when The☆Lukeman appears and takes the spot of the final boss of the arc as well as the creator of the Fusion card, but Yuo still pushes his role as the main antagonist.
  • The main villain of the "Goha Employees" arc turns out to be Yuga Goha, the long-lost sixth Goha sibling whose identity was sealed away as Guruguru.
  • To round it all out, the seventh, main, and final villain is Otes all along. Enacting a years long plan based on a book called Sevens, Otes had planned to destroy all forms of dueling to put it back into the hands of children.
• The Artifact:
  • Master Duels have become this by the time the series started, with every onscreen duel centered around Rush Duels. Interestingly, while previous series featuring a new duel format would have Master Duels interspersed with said new format, there aren’t any featured in SEVENS outside of flashbacks, and even then, all that’s shown are brief scenes.
  • While initially introduced as a big driving force in further evolving Rush Duels, by the second season, Maximum Summoning quickly fell out of focus after Fusion had been made more easily available, along with the lack of characters who have a complete Maximum Monster.
• Art Shift: Characters are either depicted as chibis during Exposition or drawn in a different style such as the crayon-like style during Luke's Imagine Spot on Romin's possible spy background.
• Art-Shifted Sequel: Unlike previous series, SEVENS deviates completely from the anime series' usual art style and goes more for something along the lines of Future Card Buddyfight and Beyblade.
• Badass Adorable: The characters of the main cast are competent duelists while still being elementary students.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Exaggerated; Goha Corp regulates everything from school attendance to exchanging cards.
  • Elementary-school children are all in Goha's database and identified by codes, and any technological modifications (like adjusting a bike like Yuga did) are prohibited.
  • Six infractions leads to the perpetrator's account being banned.
  • They exercise full control over the internet, deleting any videos that displease them and even controlling information on the internet to such an extent that they can hide certain topics from search results.
• Big Damn Reunion: The series concludes with Yuga losing himself in space (along with Kaizo) by his lonesome, after defeating Otes a final time. It would take him two years to eventually return to Earth and reunite with his friends.
• Big Eater:
  • Luke is shown to eat everything placed in front of him, something that's Lampshaded in Episode 14.
  • Downplayed with Romin. If she doesn't eat, she enters a Superpowered Evil Side, and she admits to eating more than she cooks, which is to say she has no experience cooking. Played Straight in Episode 46, where she joins Luke in consuming a cake version of Stonehenge.
  • It's unclear if Getta is this trope normally, but he's certainly capable of it, having eaten all the food in a venue to starve Romin.
• Book Ends: The first two duels sees Yuga dueling Otes then Luke, the final two duels finishes with Yuga defeating Luke, then defeating Otes.^note Technically the order of the final duels are Yuga vs Otes and Yuga vs Luke in between that duel.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: When Luke uses Yuga's deck in Episode 79, he uses Yuga's summon chants for Sevens Road Magician and Supreme Flagship Magnum Overlord.
• Breaking Old Trends: Yuga's ace monster, Sevens Road Magician, is the first among the main protagonists to not have 2500 ATK, instead possessing only 2100 ATK, while also being the first to explicitly have an ATK boosting effect. Main rival Roa's ace monster, Royal Demon's Heavymetal, likewise only has 2500 ATK instead of 3000.
• Brick Joke: The prize for the Goha Rush Duel Tournament are handmade crowns, a pair of jeans, a guitar and a year's supply of curry. In the first episode of season 2, the winner Luke wears the former three items along with sunglasses to assert his dominance as the King of Duels.
• The Bus Came Back: The lower power level of Rush Duel cards has meant that many old Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, generally from the Duel Monsters era, have made a viable return.
  • Otes uses Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and Summoned Skull which haven't been used outside of films since Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (though both cards technically appeared at the start of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL as statues and special summons but not as the card themselves).
  • Guruguru uses Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl from a rental deck at Goha Library.
• Butt-Monkey: Luke is the one who is shown in humorous situations to his detriment to most, but all characters have their moments.
• Call-Back: Maximum Monsters have two primary sources of inspiration, both taken from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
  • Multi-part monsters like Exodia and Gate Guardian, which require the specific cards in the players hand to summon them.
  • The Egyptian God cards; the first three Maximums shown, Yggdrago, Magnum Over Road, and Wurm Ex-Cavator are Composite Characters of Obelisk, Slifer/Osiris and Ra, and face off in similar situations; Yggdraggo (a serpentine dragon) battles Magnum Over Road (a humanoid) while coiled around a tower just as Slifer and Obelisk did in Battle City, while Wurm Ex-Cavator and Magnum Over Road later battle with equal ATK as Slifer and Obelisk did in that same duel, unleashing incredible power when they do so. Hyper Engine Vast Vulcan also heavily resembles Obelisk and serves a similar role that Obelisk did in the Duel between Yugi and Atem in the second Duel between Yuga and Luke.
• Calling Your Attacks: As is series tradition, the characters call out for their Ace Monsters to utilize their effects or special attacks on their opponents when on the offensive.
• Captain Obvious: Although less prominent compared to ARC-V and VRAINS, there are a small number of instances where a duelist says some variation of "But you still take damage!" when their opponent's monster isn't destroyed in battle because of a card effect.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Arata stoops to cheating in both his duels, and is always on the losing side despite the advantage.
• Chekhov's Gun: Luke’s watch that powers his Pauli Effect, is used to temporarily thwart Otes’ schemes in the final arc.
  • Romin's curry is shown to have explosive properties since its introduction, eventually revealing them to be enough to make it a viable energy source during the Goha Employer arc. Then one arc later, at the end of the final arc, this turns out to be the only way to power the shuttle that allows the sevens to go to the moon and stop Otes.
• Chekhov's Gunman: This happens frequently, as pretty much every character returns later in the series. For example, all of the duelists Yuga and Luke defeated in earlier episodes give their support during the duels against RoaRomin, with Kan even determining the location of the disappeared stone monument.
• Child Prodigy:
  • Yuga is a Gadgeteer Genius at the age of eleven who has managed to formulate a working duel format and more.
  • Subverted with Luke. Despite his arguments, he's the best duelist at his school simply due to hard work.^note It's later revealed that he's the second best; he's yet to defeat his sister Tiger, though he achieves that in the final arc... and then loses to Yuuga.
  • Romin is an expert guitarist in spite of still being in elementary school.
  • Roa managed to form an incredibly popular band and become an expert duelist at an early age all to prove that he deserved the title of "King of Duels".
  • Nail as a child was capable of penetrating Goha's satellites for amusement and would later be hired by Goha as the overseer of duels.
• The Chosen One: The title of "King of Duels" is seen as this given whoever holds the title theoretically would control unquestionable sovereignty over Duel Monsters as a whole. Otes specifically chose Yuga as the one who would inherit his personal card, and therefore his dream.
• City of Adventure: Goha City acts as the primary setting, with all misadventures occurring within the city or on its outskirts.
• Combat Commentator: Per usual, characters discuss moves made by duelists on the sidelines as the duels go on, with Gakuto explaining the concepts of the game both to Romin and the audience.
• Combining Mecha: Yuga's Maximum Monster, Magnum Over Road is one, complete with scene of the merge.
• Computers Are Fast: During Kaizo's duel against the Goha drones, their moves are so fast that their turns last seconds. Though, it is implied that said duel did something to Kaizo.
  • While Kaizo and Sebastian usually speak with voices, they also could have a quick, secret conversation in 0.05 seconds.
• Contrived Coincidence: Subverted. The building where Yuga and Luke find the mysterious hologram is the same where Romin claims she practices her music. Later episodes show she was sent by Roa to spy on the group.
• Cosmic Deadline: Possibly due to the multiple hiatuses caused by the COVID pandemic, the final arc is noticeably shorter than the previous ones. The two final duels are crammed into the last two espisodes, and certain characters (like Nanana and Yuga Goha) seemed to have had their plot involvement cut short.
• Crazy-Prepared: Shown many times by Yuga throughout the series such as livestreaming his and Luke's Duel to guarantee his new format will be known, or managing to track the mysterious stone relic with the assistance of Kan. Where being the location RoaRomin is performing.
• Cuteness Equals Forgiveness: While failing to cook her dish, Romin's arguments that she's still new to cooking leads to Gakuto giving her outs, though he eventually gets fed up with her failings.
• Dawn of an Era: Yuga's implementation of "Rush Duel" creates an entirely new rule set to break the stagnancy that he sees plaguing the Dueling World, and a main crux of the plot revolves around the group's attempt to popularize the format into becoming mainstream.
• A Day in the Limelight: The series in general has proven good at this, being quite willing to give characters who appeared once before episodes of their own. The Maximum arc, for example, featured two duels in a row with the protagonist not being one of the main quartet, something fairly unheard of for Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Denser and Wackier: This is by far the densest and wackiest the franchise has been at so far. SEVENS has all the trappings of a surrealist comedy, and it shows, particularly when it comes to Large Hams Gakuto and Luke and the thoroughly bizarre decks that are used by the side characters at times (including ramen ninjas, Younger and Hipper versions of older female monsters, and Post-Apocalyptic Mad-Max style beast warriors in the first ten episodes alone).
  • Later episodes have a butler throne, a quartet of (apparently) closely related Cloud Cuckoolander girls who work for different arc villains and a literal duelling pigeon. Well we've apparently seen it all now... and the series still has quite a few episodes to air.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • OP1, "Nanananananana", is performed by YouthK Saeki, who would go on to voice Jango Arisugawa starting from the Goha 6th Elementary arc.
  • ED1, "Goha Seventh Elementary School Song", is performed by Hiiro Ishibashi (Yuga), Taku Yashiro (Luke), and Natsuki Hanae (Gakuto). Tomori Kusunoki (Romin) also joins in, starting from Episode 27.
  • The special ED in Episode 13, "Miniscape", is performed by Kazuki Furuta (Roa), and also serves as an Insert Song for the same episode and Roa's Leitmotif.
• Dream Intro: The series starts off with Yuga piloting a giant mecha charging his opponent to become the "King of Duels", only to smash his head on the lighting above and awaken. Also counts as a case of Foreshadowing since Yuga gains a mecha Maximum monster, Super Magitek Deity Magnum Over Road, in episode 25.
• Duels Decide Everything:
  • As is the series' norm. As the vast majority of these are between kids that are established as Duelists however, it's more believable at the beginning of the series.
  • When Kaizo wandered off on its own while attached to Yuga's bike it encountered some Goha drones. After a duel with rapid turns Kaizo wins and they let it go. Subverted in that while Kaizo was distracted with the duel, they stole its program and main body and Kaizo escaped into the bike at the last moment.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Averted with Luke toward Romin for manipulating them from the very start, and he only softens when he sees how hard she tries to redeem herself to them.
  • Played straight with Luke himself much later though after he betrayed them by joining Yuo.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While the antagonists try to destroy the Rush Duel format, the bosses so far have been fair in their approach against Yuga. For example, Nail put himself to five penalties when he fought Yuga as otherwise it wouldn't mean anything if he won with nothing on the line, in the same token Asana waited for a rematch against Yuga until he got his hands on another Maximum Monster wanting a fair fight. Then there is Yuo Goha, who finds his brother Yuga Goha's violent and sadistic tendencies and desire to brainwash people with Monster Reborn card to be excessive despite being a manipulative Card-Carrying Villain himself.
• Evil Mentor: The Reveal in the penultimate episode of Season One wants us to believe that Otes is this. He had secretly been using the Rush Duel Tournament as a front to uninstall Rush Duels so that even Goha didn't notice. However, even mildly observant viewers will note this goal is completely antithetical to every single action he had taken up to that point. Not only would Rush Duels not have evolved to the extent they did without help from him, he had been grooming Yuga to use Rush Duels to become King of Duels since Yuga was a small child. This is even acknowledged in-universe, and it's a given he has an endgame beyond the destruction of Rush Duels. However, the Season Finale doesn't answer what that is.
• Evolving Credits: The opening credits for the dub changes one section based on the current Arc Villain.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Justified as it would ruin the balance of the game if the opponent had little clue as to what certain cards do.
• Eye Catch: To complete the toku hero parody, episode 62 shows images of "The☆Lukeman" striking dynamic poses before and after the usual commercial break.
• Fan Boy: Or fan bot in Kaizo's case toward Romin.
• Foreshadowing: The series is very good about this, often laying down slight threads in one episode that inform following ones.
  • The newspaper that writes about "Rush Duel" informs many characters about Yuga and his friends.
  • Mimi thinks about her son and his favourite napolitan spaghetti in her debut episode, and he appears as the main dueling foe in the following episode.
  • The Duel Guitar first appears at the end of episode 9, where Romin takes an interest in it. Yuga modifies it the next episode.
  • Yuga showcases some hesitance at going to Romin's concert for unspecified reasons until seeing that Dark Hall Seven will be the venue. It later turns out said place is where the relic resurfaces, and his schedule conflicted due to wanting to track it down.
  • Menzaburo mentioned Nick Yagi and Sushiko Maki in his debut, and they showed up with him during the RoaRomin concert.
  • Yuga reacted without any surprise to the Hologram Man. While it's easy to write off as him being a Mellow Fellow, it's actually an early hint that he'd met the Hologram Man before.
  • The Restaurant A.I. first appeared in a background shot when Kaizo was explaining about the A.I. Restaurant, before later serving as a viewpiece for Neiru. The Restaurant itself became relevant as the location that Kaizo was taken to after Neiru took his data.
  • After Kaizo wins a duel against Goha drones it is motionless and silent for a moment but then wakes up and cheerfully goes find Romin. However it calls her Romin-tan instead of the usual Romin-chan, indicating something about its AI changed.^note -tan is a slang honorific based on a child's mispronunciation of -chan, and is rarely used in any form.
  • Mimi gives Luke coupons after her identity is revealed to keep him quiet, and they serve to kick off the group's second confrontation with Arata Arai.
  • Luke's power seemingly being connected to his watch yet never affecting him when he duels was foreshadowed since the second episode, where he removes his watch to duel.
  • Maximum Summoning itself (placing three monsters next to each other to connect them) was foreshadowed by the three Drones combining to face Kaizo.
  • Yuga's three Maximum Monsters being derived from his friends' Duel ID cards was foreshadowed by their appearance in his dream at the beginning of the series.
  • The Gohanium metal is introduced in the Duel between Tiger and Zomyoji, something fairly separate from the main conflict. A few episodes later, it's shown that Duel Disks are made of Gohanium as well.
  • Hunt was shown to be the most jerkish of the Dueling & Dinosaur Club in their debut, and later goes through a greedy phase where he looks down on his friends.
  • At the beginning of Season 2, Tiger finds Luke's childhood manga and leaks it to the school newspaper to curb his ego. A Freeze-Frame Bonus detailed the basic plot, which is later perfectly recreated in-series and leads to Luke becoming the real-life The Lukeman.
  • The Lukeman helmet itself was seen in the background almost ten episodes before its debut.
  • The series opens with a dueling mecha. The last duel of the series is fought while piloting said mecha.
  • Speaking of the last duel Perfect Sevens, the card that allows Yuuga to win, was shown in the first opening.
• For Happiness: Yuga creates the "Rush Duel" format simply to create a new way to have fun with dueling, and is supportive of others experimenting themselves with their own ideas.
• Free-Range Children: The entire cast is built on this and are left on their own without issue.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Kaizo occasionally makes funny faces in the background of episodes.
  • While Kakoko and Nick were busy dueling both Luke and Romin were busy eating the gigantic sweets made by Kakoko.
• Game Changer:
  • Invoked at the start of the series with Yuga's "Rush Duel", which was meant to stop the stagnation of Duel Monsters and return it to a game where people can have fun again.
  • Occurs when Maximum Summoning is introduced by its creator Nail, forcing Yuga to restrategize as it shifted the entire dynamic of "Rush Duel" with its power.
  • The inclusion of the Fusion card reintroduced the Fusion mechanic to the game allowing all the characters access to powerful new monsters and even new monster types.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Roa gives one to Yuga during his Heroic BSoD post-defeat to Neiru out of contempt toward his rival seemingly giving up so easily.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Despite defeating Mimi, the group is penalized as the rules implemented by Neiru involves anyone who sees themselves as an ally to Yuga. Mimi, who legitimately sees herself as a friend of the group, therefore qualified. This issue occurs once more when Luke, Gakuto, and Romin confront Otes for answers about Maximum Summoning, all gaining penalties despite winning due to Otes being considered a "friend" of Yuga.
• Heroes Act, Villains Hinder: Yuga sets off the plot of the show after successfully implementing his "Road", causing Goha Corp to fight back against the new dueling format.
• Heroic BSoD: Yuga briefly enters one after his defeat by Neiru. Through Roa and his friends he manages to shake out of it and regain the will to fight. It's feared this has happened again after he loses to Yuo. As it turns out, Yuga was simply really excited by the possibility they didn't know where Fusion came from.
• Heroic Second Wind: Invoked by Yuga's "Rush Duel" format. Players draw to maximum hand size every turn so there's always the possibility of a sudden comeback.
• High-Tech Hexagons: Goha City & Goha Corporation incorporates hexagons into their buildings & architecture.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Menzaburo is based around a ninja motif, and is dressed in hot red and spouts his love for ramen.
• History Repeats: The first two turns of Swirly and Otes's duel in the beginning of Season Two play out the exact same way as they did during the first two turns of Yuga and Otes's first duel.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Yuga is subject to this when Nail manages to implement a new summoning method in a vacant spot in the "Rush Duel" program, which Yuga acknowledges he left purposefully.
• Hollywood Hacking: Yuga attempts to hack his new "Rush Duel" format into his duel disk, but fails due to being unable to beat the clock. He succeeds when dueling the Hologram Man with a method used by developers to test new updates in real time.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Parodied with the duel between Gakuto and Romin, as the latter is mistaken for missing her friends while in reality she's simply starving due to her meal being stolen by Roa to force out her Superpowered Evil Side.
• Imagine Spot: Luke is prone to this from time to time, such as when he believed Romin was a Goha spy.
• Inciting Incident: Yuga first acquired the desire to change the rigid Dueling World when he saw a mysterious man named Otes who interrupted a local tournament and gifted Sevens Road Magician to Yuga, an incident that convinced him duels could still be fun.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Every single episode that seems as though it will be inconsequential is this. Luke dueling the chief of the local school newspaper for libel about Rush Duels? That newspaper becomes a key source of information for many characters about the format. An episode about a failing ramen shop where Yuga duels a noodle ninja user? It introduces an AI based restaurant connected to the Arc Villain of the following arc. That same noodle ninja user joining the gang for an episode to duel an Ambiguously Human girl who also loves ramen? An Identical Stranger to her appears in a later episode working for a different party.
• Insane Troll Logic: The AI robots working in Nail Saionji's Garden of Providence all have their own eccentric and wacky interpretations of what providence means to them. Neiru himself often links whatever facet of life imaginable to providence.
• Instant Web Hit: Anything to do with "Rush Duel" became popular online early in the series given how out of left-field the rule set was in terms of release, but eventually everything was censored by Goha to maintain control.
• Internal Homage: Mimi's deck is based around early Duel Monsters cards living in the Bubble Era.
• It Was a Gift: Romin's Prima Guitarna was gifted to her by her idol during a concert, which has since become a Memento MacGuffin to her ever since. Other than her, Yuga gained Sevens Road Magician from Otes as a kid which inspired him to create his "Roads".
• I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before: A common occurrence early in the series when "Rush Duel" was still in its infancy, as the people were simply unfamiliar with the new format.
• Job-Stealing Robot: Tahayasty is nearly run out of business due to a Goha-run restaurant based around AI service, taking away most of the customers through technology and marketing tactics.
• Kid Hero: The main cast are elementary school students.
• Kill One, Others Get Stronger: The crux of Yuga's battle strategy is to send as many monsters of differing elements into the graveyard to boost Sevens Road Magician.
• Large Ham: Most of the cast have their moments, but Luke and Gakuto are the primary offenders in the main group.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Yuga Goha is capable erasing memories by playing Monster Reborn and reciting a chant. As a result, Yuo gets reverted to the mind of a child and much of the secondary cast forget about Rush Duels and their relationship with Yuga and Luke, reverting them to their original pre-Character Development personalities.
  Let the living be sealed into light and the dead rise from the darkness.
• Lethal Chef: Zigzagged with Romin. Despite her complete inexperience in the kitchen, with help she manages to make a delicious, albeit odd, plate of curry rice. Simultaneously, trying to add to the already finished dish leads to her flooding Roa's apartment complex.
• Lighter and Softer: Easily the lightest Yu-Gi-Oh! series so far. An outwardly bright and cheerful story and setting with the caveat that its MegaCorp has achieved authoritarian power so extensive that society follows its directives with little protest. The primary conflicts in the story only amounts to the company trying to destroy the Rush Duel format.
• Loophole Abuse: In the climax of episode 67, Yuga plays the card "1/Infinity", which allows both him and The☆Lukeman to draw a card; however, if they draw cards with different names, Yuga will take enough damage to lose the duel. The☆Lukeman goes first and draws "Fusion", a card Yuga doesn't have, which everyone on the sidelines thinks means he's lost... until a literal meteorite flies over Goha City and crashes into Yuga's deck, adding a copy of "Fusion" to it. Yuo understandably tries to claim that this is cheating, but according to Yuran, the Goha rulebook states that cards added mid-duel are only a rule violation if the duelist meant to add the card, and that unpredictable circumstances like this are permitted.
• Magical Incantation: As is series tradition, certain duelists have summoning chants for their ace monsters:
  • Yuga and Sevens Road Magician ^note  It was taken from Otes the day he was gifted Sevens Road Magician and is further hinted to have cmome from the "Sevens" storybook.:
    Yuga: (Japanese) No matter if walls, mountains, or even planets block my path, I will carve my own road and push forward! Let's go, Sevens Road Magician!
    Yuga: (English) A wall, a mountain, not even a planet can block my way! Nothing will stop my road to victory! Let's go, Sevens Road Magician!
  • Luke and Dragias the Striking Dragon:
    Luke: (Japanese) Now, in my galaxy the seven supernovas gamma ray bursts converge! Even if you tell me to stop, it's too late! Even if you tell me to stop, it's too late! There's a reason I said it twice! Now, come out! Dragias the Striking Dragon!
    Luke: (English) Seven Stars collide to burst into a supernova! You're not ready for this! You're so not ready for this! I say it twice because this monster strikes twice as hard! Rise into the Light! Multistrike Dragon Dragias!
  • When Ranze and Rinnosuke duel Gakuto to give him back his memories which summoning chant is used becomes actually plot relevant.
• The Magic Poker Equation: Characters will frequently draw the required card needed to win a duel during pivotal moments as is series norm. Justified as the "Rush Duel" method was created to allow players to comeback at any time.
• Magnetic Hero: Yuga usually manages to befriend most he comes across with his positive demeanor. It's noted that he also has managed to get his hand on the "Sevens Road" archetype through drawing the cards toward him, a feat stated by Otes as a sign of a skilled duelist.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Goha Corp's entire company is filled with employees wearing the symbol over the eyes, with its CEO possessing a full face mask.
• The Man Is Keeping Us Down: Efforts by the main cast to popularize the new format are censored by Goha Corp at every turn.
• MegaCorp: Goha Corporation is in charge of running Goha City, and dictates both Duel Monsters and its citizens' way of life. Its influence is so pervasive that the company can completely remove "Rush Duel" from online search engines.
• The Mole: Romin is shown sending pictures to a mysterious benefactor, later revealed to be her cousin Roa.
• Morton's Fork: A variant occurs between Luke, Gakuto, and Romin when they confront Otes over Maximum Summons, as they'll all be penalized whether they win or lose. They choose to confront him despite the fact, knowing a countermeasure must be secured for Yuga to claim victory over Neiru.
• Mythology Gag:
  • "King of Duels", the major title of the duelist set to change the dueling world, sounds like an on-the-nose callback to "King of Games", a title held by Yugi Muto throughout most of the original series.
  • Yuga and Nail’s second Duel is a big one to Yugi and Kaiba's Duel in Battle City, taking place on top of a tower with a serpentine draconian monster coiled around it battling a humanoid monster. In a twist, though, it is Yggdrago that has the fixed 4000 ATK, while Magnum Over Road can vary its own ATK.
  • Asana and Yuga's second Duel features another one to the same duel, with Magnum Over Road and Wurm Ex-Cavator clashing with equal ATK and unleashing incredible power.
  • Most of the Heavy Cavalry Duel Club use construction equipment, such as excavator’s, to Duel instead of the standard Duel Disks, reminiscent of the Duel Arena’s used in the original series.
  • When Yuka summons two level 4 monsters in her duel against Romin, Luke is quick to mention the levels of those monsters, which in the previous three series would be pointed out when a character has two or more monsters of the same level to set up for an Xyz Summon.
  • One of the newly unveiled Monster Types - "Magical Knight" is a callback to the Early-Installment Weirdness of the original manga when Yugi first used Gaia the Fierce Knight, Kaiba commented that it is "the strongest Monster of the Magical Knight Type".
  • In episode 75, when Romin brings up that they don’t know if Yuga has any siblings, the silhouette in her Imagine Spot is identical to the Paradox Brothers, particularly their character model from Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links.
  • Episode 84’s dub has the fairy tales that Mimi reads to a regressed Yuo be variations of the original series (two friends that had to leave each other forever) and Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions (a boy who built an elevator into space).
• Mysterious Waif: Downplayed with Romin. She's a rather famous student whose built a reputation around her intellect and guitar skills, but her involvement with the main group causes suspicion by the members who acknowledge her presence as unusual given her supposed lack of interest in Duel Monsters as a whole.
• Number of the Beast: Any attempt to modify a Goha Duel Disk is met with a warning that the user has precisely 6 minutes and 66 seconds to cease their activities. Episode 4 reveals that SEVENS doesn't use our conventional time system — there's more than 60 seconds to a minute there.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • While Luke, Gakuto and Romin confront Otes about Maximum Summons, only Gakuto's Duel is shown on screen, but Luke and Romin manage to win their own Duels.
• Older Than They Look: Mimi Atachi is thirty-seven, yet she has a childlike body which she uses to her advantage in spying over Yuga's group.
• One-Steve Limit: A specific aversion with Yuga Ohdo and Yuga Goha.
• Our Hydras Are Different: Neiru’s ace monster, Yggdrago the Heavenly Emperor Dragon Tree, is a powerful, three-headed dragon based on the Nordic world tree and is the first Maximum Monster to be introduced.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Despite being a member of Hexagon, Mimi fully admits she enjoys the company and memories of Yuga's group.
• Race Against the Clock: A number of the show's early "Rush Duel" are conducted while the characters have to finish within an external time limit. The circumstances combined with the "Rush Duel's" rules makes a Duel very short, usually lasting no more than four turns total.
• Reconstruction: Of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. After spin-off after spin-off introducing a new summoning method that made the card game more complicated, SEVENS brings the fun back into the franchise by simplifying the rules and giving players plenty of opportunities to summon more monsters, draw more cards, and make friends in the process.
  • It also brings the franchise back to the idealistic side on the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism after ARC-V and VRAINS heavily deconstructed the franchises tropes and toyed with the scale.
• Red Herring: After overhearing a meeting between Yuga and the Goha Siblings, Mimi speculates that Yuga may be one of them, noting that his given name contains "Yu" like all of the siblings do. While the sixth Goha Sibling is also called Yuga, the true identity of Swirly, he and Yuga Ohdo are completely separate characters and share no relation with each other.
• Retractable Weapon: Duel Disks compact into a six-inch hexagon when not in use, extending to full size when dueling.
• Revisiting the Roots: After introducing new summoning methods in past spin-offs (Synchro in 5Ds, Xyz in ZEXAL, Pendulum in ARC-V, and Link in VRAINS), SEVENS features the classic Tribute Summoning, but in an accelerated format because of "Rush Duel". It would eventually get a new summoning method by way of Maximum Summon, introduced by Neiru Saionji, and Yuo Goha would reintroduce Fusion Summoning.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • After it's revealed that Luke's "Devil" power is connected to his watch, looking back will reveal that indeed, every time he uses it, he has said watch on the hand he uses for the power.
• Rule of Seven: Appropriate for its title and status as the seventh anime series in the franchise, SEVENS employs the number 7 as its numerological motif in the following ways:
  • There are seven main characters; Yuga, Luke, Romin and Gakuto serve as the main four and the first three Arc Villains, Roa, Nail and Asana, round out the cast.
  • Duel Disks are shaped to resemble a "7" when activated in "Rush Duel" mode.
  • OP1 is titled "Nanananananana", with exactly seven "na"s in the song's title.
  • Yuga uses an archetype of Spellcaster-type monsters called "Sevens" in his deck.
  • Goha Elementary has a total of seven different divisions, with every member of the main cast attending Goha Seventh Elementary.
  • Nanami Maguro's given name literally translates to "seven seas".
  • The combined levels of Neiru and Yuga's Maximum Monsters total 17, each.
• Running Gag:
  • Luke going off onto tangents on how he'll become the "King of Duels", with the other characters either putting up with it or ignoring him outright.
  • During Luke's duel with Ushiro, the latter has him becoming terrified when the latter says his name due to it meaning "behind you" in Japanese. Luke stops upon realizing this, much to the surprise of his friends who knew from the start.
  • People forgetting to call Luke's sister Tiger by her nickname and subsequently being yelled away by her. Including her own clubmates and Luke himself.
• Schizo Tech: Despite the higher standard of technology, the President of Goha uses a rotary phone. Fax machines are regarded as "cutting-edge communication technology" available only to the super wealthy.
• Schmuck Bait: While exploring the undergrounds of the city, the group encounters a random traditional ramen restaurant conveniently there while they're starving. Despite lampshading via Romin, the group nevertheless enters and is lured into a duel.
• School of No Studying: The cast focuses their time at school more on popularizing the "Rush Duel" style rather than studying, barring Gakuto.
• Second Place Is for Winners: In the second episode, Luke defeats Yuga in a duel, but the latter gets to showcase "Rush Duel" to the world via Xanatos Gambit, leaving him the true victor.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Episode 2 has Yuga attribute Luke's Walking Techbane status to the Pauli effect, with Gakuto noting how technical equipment supposedly failed in Wolfgang Pauli's presence on a regular basis.
  • Episode 14 has Gakuto explaining how dust explosions work and what gunpowder is composed of...due to Romin mucking about in the kitchen.
• Signature Mon: The main protagonists all possess at least one as is series tradition.
  • Yuga: Sevens Road Magician
  • Luke: Multistrke Dragon Dragias
  • Romin: Prima Guitarna of the Colorful Light
  • Gakuto: Yameruler, the Dark Delayer
  • Roa: Royal Demon's Heavymetal
  • Nail: Yggdrago the Sky Emperor
  • Asana: Constructor Wyrm Buildragon
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: After ARC-V went crazy with the scale and VRAINS leaned closer to the cynical side, SEVENS brings the scale back to the idealistic side, despite the fact that the characters live in a Crapsaccharine World.
• The Smurfette Principle: Romin is the sole female of the quartet.
• Spit Take: Romin gives one out of shock upon seeing the number of likes Yuga and Luke's video has.
• Status Quo Is God: After losing a duel to Yuga in Episode 4, Gakuto abides by the conditions of said duel and steps down as Student Council President. However, he is quickly reinstated in an emergency election held afterwards.
• Super-Deformed: Occurs during humorous moments or during Exposition on the game.
• Stock Shōnen Rival: Roa, Nail, and Asana are all designated as rivals by Word of God, and collectively they possess all the traits of this trope. Roa has the arrogance and less-than-stellar moral compass that belies a fundamentally good heart. Neiru has the privileged background, reserved temperament, and monstrous skill. And Asana has the Stubborn Pride and desire to defeat the hero at their absolute best.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: It is difficult to be a Grade-School C.E.O. so even with multiple, the Goha Siblings are quickly overwhelmed by the work after Yuga's program for more duel types and Yuga Goha's chaos, initially slacking off and then requiring Mimi's help.
• Take That!: Roa's trying to get Yuga banned for having an exclusive card he (or rather, Otes) is accused of creating himself can be seen as a not-so-subtle jab at the previous protagonists' tendency to create unique new cards out of nowhere to win.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Justified, as Duel Monsters is a turn-based card game.
• Tastes Better Than It Looks: Romin's curry rice has a blue coloring, but is considered palatable nevertheless.
• Time Skip: The epilogue of the series takes place two years after Yuga defeats Otes but ends up lost in space due to the strain on the Rush Duel Robot he piloted. It would take him that much time to eventually return and reunite with his friends back down on Earth.
• To Be a Master: Zigzagged with Yuga as he simply wanted to make dueling fun again, though he shows some interest in the title of "King of Duels" nonetheless. Luke's singular goal is to become the "King of Duels" himself. Yuga eventually decides to become "King of Duels" after beating Roa, though does so on his own terms.
• Took a Level in Badass: Romin started the show as the Naïve Newcomer, but after coaching from Roa she became a competent duelist with a win against Gakuto and later on against Yuga and Roa himself.
• Transforming Mecha: Yuga's notes indicate he dreams of creating one, though they're only drawings rather than anything resembling a blueprint. He eventually designs a robot mode for his Duel-Bicycle which Kaizo attached, though it is shown to burn through his bike's electrical capacity.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The first glimpse into Nail’s childhood is of him hacking satellites to force them to plummet back into orbit, something which caused his parents to push him toward Duel Monsters as to shift his attention away from mass harm.
• Unblockable Attack: Gakuto's Fiendish Commander Kimeruler's ability allows it to directly attack the opponent through its effect which nets him victory against Otes.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Yuga, Luke, Ranze, Rinnosuke, the Heavy Machinery Duel Club and Sebastian spend most of episode 82 planning to restore Yuga Goha’s victims memories by reenacting the events from specific episodes. But not only are their plans not effective, but it turns out that Yuga Goha also brainwashed Gakuto into his lackey in addition to the memory wipe.
• Urban Legends: Yuga manages to implement his ruleset via a holographic man who tests those for the title of "King of Duels", and whose true identity remains a mystery to the cast.
• Villain Respect: Played both ways with Yuga and Roa toward each other for their respective determination at achieving their goals.
• Visual Pun: In Episode 70, the Dueling Mad Scientists club of Goha 5th Elementary is shown. Which has the members Schrödinger, Pavlov and Maxwell. They wear animal costumes referencing the real life scientists they are based on: cat, dog and demon. But Maxwell is wearing a bear costume instead because the japanese word for demon: Akuma, sounds similar to bear: Kuma.
• Walking Techbane: Luke has the ability to shut down electronic devices in close proximity when wearing his great-grandfather's watch. He seems to be limited to doing it twice a day, though occasionally his power can go off randomly.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 23, where Nail Saionji introduced the first Maximum Summon and proceeded to curbstomp Yuga.
  • Episode 58 gives us a big one, as Yuo Goha performs the first Fusion Summoning in a Rush duel. He also plays the newest monster type: Cyborg, before winning by destroying Yuga's Hyper Engine Vast Vulcan.
  • Episode 77 gives us a bigger one, as Swirly is revealed to be the sixth Goha sibling, Yuga Goha, who is not only an unusually violent Duelist, but outright declares his goal is to spread fear and darkness, implying a dark turn for the rest of the arc.
• With Friends Like These...: Luke and Romin's relationship is highly aggressive with the two of them at odds due to the latter's original role as Roa's spy and later due to Romin lacking patience over Luke's general idiocy, though they nevertheless hang out together alongside Yuga and Gakuto.
• The Worf Effect: Otes is often used to help the other characters by forcing them to duel him. However, he always centers his encounters based on classic monsters. As such, they have to overcome them often. Examples include:
  • The iconic card Blue-Eyes White Dragon appears in the first episode to put Yuga on the ropes before it gets defeated during his Heroic Second Wind.
  • A similar event occurs with Red-Eyes Black Dragon where Luke, Gakuto, and Romin manage to defeat the monster to gain answers from Otes.
  • Once again used with the Summoned Skull when Yuga defeats Otes to convince him to enter the Goha Rush Duel Tournament.
• World of Ham: Every member of the cast will generally be a Large Ham to some extent, and even calmer characters such as Yuga and Romin will fall prey to some level of overexaggeration.
• Xanatos Gambit: Yuga is surprisingly good at these.
  • Yuga pulls one off in the second episode against Luke via live-streaming their duel in secret which properly introduces "Rush Duel" as a fun new way to play the game to the world, with the fact that he lost having little consequence overall.
  • He does it again during the lead up to his second Duel with Asana. He intended to have a chance at using a Maximum during the Duel regardless, either through recreating Magnum Over Road using whatever ID cards he could scavenge, or by borrowing Nail's Yggdrago.
  • Gakuto surprisingly pulls this off against Nail of all people. He was unable to defeat Yggdrago in his last turn, but set up his next turn on that possibility, setting his monsters to an absolute defense strategy so he can survive to a possible next turn, knowing Yggdrago can force a monster into attack and another to be destroyed wanting to use all of that up, and if he still manages to remove his defense, which Neiru of course did attempting his own Gambit, he pulls one last gamble on a direct attack that would force a tie by dealing Yggdrago's 4000 damage to BOTH players.
  • Otes' actual plan is actually this. He pushes children to take duel into their own hands and take charge, eventually being the ones standing between him and the complete eradication of duels. If they don't stop him, they win. But to stop they would have to cause a revolution in duels and how they are approached, taking them away from the greedy hands of adults, still achieving his goal.

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