#e01

We start off with a dream sequence of Yuga controlling a giant robot. This already presents a minor difference: In the sub, we're told by a voice that this is the story of a boy seeking freedom, and that this story is also how that boy became the King of Duels, while the dub has Yuga directly tell us he will not be controlled, and his road is the road to freedom.

Not a huge difference here in terms of dialogue itself, but I am interested in the change in the source of the dialogue here; the sub has someone telling Yuga's story for him, while the dub gives Yuga more agency and presents it like Yuga's telling his own story.

After the opening credits, we see Yuga at his desk trying to install new dueling rules onto his duel disk. A drone tells him if he does not stop he will receive a penalty on his account. The sub and dub give different time limits for Yuga to stop, however; in the sub, he's told he has six minutes and sixty-six seconds to withdraw, but in the dub, he's told he only has six seconds. The dub is actually more accurate here; six minutes and sixty-six seconds was probably how long Yuga was given total, but once the drone talks, Yuga's locked out after six seconds pass in both the sub and the dub.

After Yuga receives his fifth out of six possible penalties, we see some kids walking to school from the point of view of a drone. The drone speaks to the kids in both versions. However, while the sub has the drone telling kids to have a fun and healthy day, the dub has the drone reminding kids to follow all 6,666 school rules.

This is a pattern that will follow us through the episode, and one that I did not expect. If anything, with Goha City being presented as this strict and controlling society, I expected the dub to not showcase it as much as the sub. However, I instead found that the dub put even more emphasis on making Goha seem controlling and rigid.

Yuga rides in on a modified bicycle right here, and it's impossible to talk about the Sevens dub without the obviously and badly edited on helmets anytime someone is riding a bike or similar vehicle.

A drone approaches Yuga and tells Yuga his bike has been modified. The sub leaves it at that, but the dub has the drone go on to say his bike is unregistered as well, and isn't allowed on school grounds without prior permission. In both versions, Yuga rushes past the drone to talk to some other kids, who quickly notice that Yuga has received a fifth penalty.

Yuga's response regarding the penalty is just slightly different in a way that sticks out to me:

Yuga (sub): W-Well, you know... These are like the medals of a challenger!

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Yuga (dub): It's not like I wanted one, but it comes with the territory when you live life on the edge!

It's just different enough that the sub seems to present Yuga as someone who likes to test his abilities, where the dub presents Yuga almost like a thrill seeker.

Also, after Yuga stands up from his bicycle, the next shot that shows his full head reveals his bicycle helmet has disappeared. Thank you, dub editors.

Someone else approaches Yuga upon hearing about a penalty: this is the student council president, Gakuto, or Gavin in the dub. Yuga has very different greetings for him in each version.

Yuga (sub): Good...Good morning, student council president!

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Yuga (dub): Hey, Gavin. Do I look like a rule breaker to you?

Via Gakuto/Gavin, we see different mannerisms from Yuga in the sub and dub throughout this episode. In the sub, Gakuto's name is never actually used in the entire episode; he's always referred to as the student council president, and Yuga speaks to him with respect. However, in the dub, Yuga is a lot more casual, even using the nickname "Prez" for him at times.

When asked about it, Yuga calls his bike a Duel Bicycle in the sub and a duel-cycle in the dub. Right after this, we see Romin briefly speak with another student who compliments her band's new song, but this interaction goes almost identical in the sub and dub.

Gakuto and Gavin get some different characterization in response to Yuga's explanation of his bike:

Gakuto: Oh! That is very convenient! Not! What on earth did you do this time to receive a penalty?

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Gavin: How brilliant, Yuga-- I mean, how illegal! As the student council president, I must remind you that riding modified two-wheeled vehicular equipment violates Rule 456 of Goha Elementary's school code!

Gavin seems to have forgotten the penalty where Gakuto refuses to drop it. Gavin's briefly distracted by Yuga's ingenuity where Gakuto is not fazed. However, when Gavin tries to slip back into his comfortable zone of his president role, he's very quick to point to an exact rule that Yuga's violating; both Gakuto and Gavin are characterized as rule breakers here, but Gavin's got them memorized, which feels like it's going the extra mile.

At this point in my notes on discord, I compared the different vibes that Goha City seems to have in the sub and dub already:

Dub Yuga does bring the conversation back around to his penalty, though, and the conversation in the sub and the dub starts to run more in parallel, hitting the same beats. As Gakuto/Gavin explains the severity of Yuga opening his duel disk, however, one minor detail sticks out as interesting to me: Gavin points to Goha owning the patent and rights to the duel disk being the key factor of why digging into the duel disk is bad, while Gakuto points to the fact that Goha controls the user data gathered by the duel disks.

Both of these points feel valid to me to be brought up as Goha's reasoning behind this rule. However, I think Gakuto's talking about Goha's control over user data is just a little scarier to me in 2025. Sure, data privacy was important when this episode aired in Japan in 2020. But in the age of LLMs, where data privacy and who you're letting access your data have become such hot topics, thinking about how much data Goha City must have from duel disk users gives me the tiniest additional amount of dread.

And as the explanation of why tampering with duel disks results in penalties continues, Gavin goes the extra mile over Gakuto to instill the fear of Goha into Yuga's heart:

Gakuto: If you meddle, you will be penalized! When you accumulate six of them, then your account will be banned!

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Gavin: Since Goha owns all the Duel Disk's patents and rights, analyzing and modding and dissecting and reverse engineering it is strictly forbidden. If you are caught doing so, you receive a penalty. And if you have six penalties, your account will be terminated, and without an account, you can't do anything in this world!

The sub's implication here feels more like getting one more penalty would just prevent Yuga from dueling, where the dub goes for the angle that Yuga's life would be effectively over.

When Yuga explains to his classmates that he's made new rules for dueling that are his road to freedom, the sub has his classmates excited that Yuga's said his catchphrase. The dub, however, changes this dialogue to...

That hits right in the tingles.

And I do not like that. Never say that again.

Eventually, this conversation is interrupted by the school bell, and a drone entering the classroom to tell students they can't use their duel disks right now. However, the sub leaves it at that while the dub has the drone continue on to say that anyone who touches or looks at their duel disk will be given extra homework.

Gakuto tells Yuga he wants to talk after class at the student council room to discuss this further.

Gavin concedes Yuga may have a point about the strict rules surrounding them, but tells Yuga that if he wants to change school rules, they can talk after school.

Gavin and Gakuto already have a bit of different characterization here. Gakuto feels more rigid to me, like he's already decided Yuga's nothing more than a troublemaker, a problem to correct. Gakuto seems a bit more interested in what Yuga says, and is more willing to hear him out, but this also clashes with his role of student council president.

I'm definitely interested to see if Gakuto and Gavin keep these kinds of differences throughout future episodes.

We see a couple of kids try to trade cards after school, but a drone stops them. The sub drone just says that Goha Corporation supervision is required, and the dub says that trades must take place with proper software at a Goha-affiliated location. After this, Yuga rides by on his bike, and, you guessed it, the dub helmet edits return.

After Yuga turns down the duel invitation, he is stopped by Luke, or, as the current subbing group will make his name, Rook.

In the sub, Rook asks if he's Yuga, and Yuga recognizes that Rook is from a different class. In the dub, Luke opens with "Yuga, I need to talk to you." Yuga tells Luke that he doesn't know who he is.

When Rook/Luke introduces himself to Yuga, Rook gives his full name while telling Yuga to call him Rook, where as Luke only gives a first name and says to call him Luke. I'm aware that the culture surrounding names and how you refer to others is different in Japanese and English. However. Given who Luke's family is, I still find it very interesting that he's left out his last name, and given how Luke feels about his family, I like to think he did this on purpose.

Gakuto/Gavin sees Yuga and Rook/Luke interacting from the student council room as Rook/Luke convinces Yuga to talk to him. Gavin is given more dialogue here than Gakuto, and something about how Gavin says it just feels very silly. I enjoyed it quite a bit:

Gavin: Yuga should be here by now, hm, but he's there...

Rook/Luke discusses the legend of the King of Duels with Yuga. (The legend rhymes in the dub, which is cute.) We see a brief shot in both the sub and the dub of Yuga wearing a gold crown, before Yuga sheepishly insists he's not interested in the title. Interestingly, Rook says that Yuga did seem interested when he talked about it, but Luke says...nothing. It makes me wonder, did Luke not see Yuga's interest? Is he choosing not to point it out? Or, alternatively, is Yuga's dismissal of the title more genuine in the dub?

Well, there's no time to find out, because a hologram man has just appeared on a pillar in this basement Rook/Luke has led Yuga to.

This hologram is intended to test for worthiness of becoming the King of Duels, and Rook/Luke has challenged it multiple times to duels, only to receive a penalty each time regardless of duel outcome. Rook and Luke describe the experience differently: Rook says "even if I beat him", where Luke says "no matter how many times I beat him", implying Rook had a harder time winning in duels against the hologram. F.

While trying to inspire Yuga to try to take the chance of installing his Rush Duel rules despite the risk of receiving his final penalty, Luke makes the comment that it would be awesome if Yuga succeeded and changed the world they live in to be less strict, where Rook says he believes Yuga's capable of doing so. Luke seems to have the slightest bit more genuine enthusiasm for Rush Duels themselves at this point over Rook, but Rook seems to have the slightest bit more faith in Yuga's ability to succeed.

After Gakuto/Gavin enters the scene, a drone flies in. If Yuga doesn't stop trying to install his Rush Duel rules, then everyone present will receive a penalty; the drone gives Yuga (in the sub) 6 minutes and 66 seconds to stop, or (in the dub) 6 minutes, 66 seconds, and 66 milliseconds to stop. Thanks, dub, those extra milliseconds make all the difference.

After a little bit, Rook/Luke reveals he knows Romin is hiding out here as well. Romin gives her excuse that she was practicing her guitar upstairs. The dub gives extra details that her whole band was practicing upstairs with her, and she came down alone to see what the commotion down here was.

After Yuga accesses the secret backdoor into the duel system, the hologram man's pillar rises. In the sub, the hologram acknowledges Yuga as the future King of Duels. In the dub, it asks Yuga if he is the future King of Duels.

When Yuga's duel disk runs low on power, Gakuto/Gavin runs off to bring in Yuga's bike so he can use it to charge the duel disk. And, you guessed it, that means it's time for another dub helmet edit, this time Gavin Edition.

But, when Gavin begins charging the duel disk and keeps the bike stationary, the helmet disappears again. He really only put it on for half a second.

When the drone turns back on, Rook/Luke tries and fails to shut it down once again. Since he already used this ability twice in this episode, Rook (in the sub) states that twice a day is his limit. Luke (in the dub) instead states he's out of juice, implying he might have a less precise idea of how often he can use that ability.

Yuga initiates Real-Time Duel Programming, and his duel disk transforms into a 7 shape. The dialogue here is slightly different

Rook: But Goha's symbol is a hexagon! Yuga: The one to break that is... SEVEN!

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Luke: But Goha's Duel Disks are all six-sided. Yuga: That means I'm one better!

(This dialogue made me sit down and count the sides on a standard duel disk. Luke helped me learn new things in this comparison. Everyone say thank you, Luke.)

ANYWAY, the point here is that, knowing the SEVENS lore that we'll get into in the future, I prefer the sub dialogue here.

This brings us to our first duel!

Not a lot of differences within the duel itself.

The sub calls Blue-Eyes White Dragon "the ultimate monster", while the dub makes it lose its edge a little, describing it as "a monster that (I) normally couldn't (summon) until much later".

One thing that Yugioh dubs certainly like to do is to spice up dialogue within duels, both from the duelists themselves and the audience. A closer lens at whether the Sevens dub follows that pattern has been requested, and I am, honestly, interested to see how this is handled as well.

The Sevens dub, in this duel, does not do much of that.

However, after Yuga takes a direct attack from Blue-Eyes, the dialogue from Gakuto/Gavin, Rook/Luke, and Romin is slightly different.

Rook: 3,000 damage at once?! Romin: But he still has 1,000 left! Gakuto: He only has 1,000 left!

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Luke: You're not supposed to get knocked down! Romin: I don't think it was by choice. Gavin: Ah! This is a disaster!

We have our first summoning chant here: I probably will not highlight every summoning chant's difference, but this is a major monster we will see often, so it deserves the attention:

(Sub) Blocking my path, the walls, the mountains, the planets! I will cut a road through them and move forward! Let's do it! Sevens Road Magician!

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(Dub) 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!

It's hard to have much variation in this summoning chant with the visuals of Yuga literally bursting through a brick wall, a mountain, and a planet, combined with the mention of his road. The sub will change hands soon enough, but I doubt there will be much difference in the summoning chant at that point, for already stated reasons. But, while there's not much difference here, it's worth bringing up because this is an ace monster that will literally travel with us to the end of the road.

Yuga gets a "Are you sure about that?" in the sub, but the dub instead gives us a "You're right, Prez! Good thing I have Wind Spirit's Protection!"

F

From here, there's really no noticeable differences to the end of the episode. Yuga wins the duel, Rush Duels are installed, and the road to becoming the King of Duels has opened.

So, here's some final thoughts I'll be taking into the future:

At this point, I've already noticed some differences between the sub and dub for characterization for Yuga and Gakuto/Gavin (as already mentioned) that I'm interested to witness the progression of as the series continues.

Romin and Rook/Luke, however, I have less of a handle on. Very few lines of dialogue for Romin have any noticeable difference so far. Rook and Luke I can definitely feel a difference between in this episode, but it's hard to articulate at this point. I'm also interested in watching these two as we go and seeing how they compare between the sub and dub.

The other big thing here I'm interested in seeing the differences between is how Goha City is portrayed. Both versions set it up as strict and controlling, but the dub goes farther in showcasing rules and punishments than the sub does. Is this a pattern that will continue?