"Life is a Carnival: Part 1", known as "His Name Is Charlie! The Man with the Strongest Luck in History" in the Japanese version, is the thirty-first episode of the Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL anime. It first aired in Japan on November 14, 2011, and aired in the United States on September 29, 2012.

Charlie McCay steals "Number 7: Lucky Straight" from a gallery. Kari, who has past history with Charlie, sends Yuma after him. He and Astral witness the power of the "Lucky Straight" when Charlie performs a One Turn Kill on a World Duel Carnival competitor. Charlie makes his escape, stealing more cards in the process, including one of Yuma's "Numbers".

SummaryEdit

Alarms ring at Heartland Museum, as a robbery has just taken place. Police forces in front of the museum are lighting up the roof with a huge spotlight, to illuminate the culprit, who gets surrounded by half a dozen of officers with laser swords. The culprit pulls a Dueling card out of his sleeve, holds it up high, and a sudden blast of thunder appears. Kari Tsukumo, at her home computer monitor, sees something is happening at the museum. She hacks, and sees a picture of the culprit. Her D-Gazer's phone function goes off, and the man calling, who's the culprit, is identified by Kari as Charlie McCay, who makes her blush. She continues to chat, until she gets all fired up at Charlie, and has a flashback, in which she remembers Charlie kissing her (this scene is cut from the dub).

Yuma Tsukumo, followed by Tori Meadows and Astral is all fired up for another of dueling in the WDC. Kari calls him, ordering him to find Charlie through her usual manner of "asking" Yuma things.

They hear shouting from a little square, and head off to it. Over there, Reginald Kastle finishes a duel using his "Submersible Carrier Aero Shark". Yuma goes of to congratulate Shark and says he's happy that Shark is participating after all. Shark tells him he's doing to get revenge on Quattro for what he did during the Nationals, and before Yuma can ask any further, Shark leaves.

Opening theme BRAVING starts, with a little narration of Yuma's previous opponents and their ace monsters.

In an alleyway, Kite Tenjo's "Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon" unleashes a final Photon Stream of Destruction on 2 opponents. Kite uses Photon Hand from both of his arms to take both of their souls and he extracts a Number card from each one of them.

Yuma and Tori are walking through a crowd of people. Yuma thinks about what Shark said before, and Tori spots Charlie McCay, who Kari ordered them to find.

Yuma introduces himself rather boldly to Charlie, who's rather surprised to hear Yuma's last name of Tsukumo.

Charlie hears Yuma out and gets to hear Kari ordered them to look for him. He pulls out a card out of his coat, and a big muscular duelist seeing this asks him if he's a duelist, challenging him. Yuma's surprised, asking Charlie if he's in the WDC, who confirms it.

At Heartland Tower, Mr. Heartland reports Kite's progress in the Numbers Hunting to Dr. Faker, and tells him about the amount of Numbers located, after which Faker recites his plan.

At Charlie's duel, Charlie is a huge pinch. He has no monsters, and only two set cards, while his opponent controls 3 powerful Xyz Monsters, and he has only 100 life points left compared to his opponent's full 4000. Yuma tells him this, but Charlie seems calm, and draws his card, which is "Reload", so he returns his whole hand to his Deck and then draws the same amount of cards as returned. He uses his spell "Triple Ace" to special summon three "Dice Leveler" monsters. Using their effects, he rolls a dice for each one to increase it's level by the rolled amount. All 3 are miraculously 6, which all three of Yuma, Tori, and Astral are amazed by, as this is nearly impossible to do.

Charlie overlays his 3 monsters which are now Level 7, to Xyz Summon his Number, "Number 7: Lucky Straight"! A roulette machine appears, which is Number 7's sealed form, which turns into it's full form. Using his "Dream Dice", Charlie rolls a dice. As it's result is 6, all of his opponent's monsters will have their Attack Points reduced to 0 by the cards effect. Again, Charlie rolls 6 for the fourth time in a row, doing so. He attacks with "Lucky Straight", and activates it's effect, and the dice roll that follows will multiply "Lucky Straight's" attack by the amount of eyes rolled, which is 6 for the fifth time, attacking, Lucky Straight obliterates the opponent's life points. Yuma, Tori, and Astral are amazed by Charlie's gameplay, and his opponent says he must've cheated as it's impossible to throw 6 so many times.

Charlie laughs, and a spotlight drops on him, it being a police helicopter doing so. Police cars suddenly surround the square, and a whole bunch of police officers approach Charlie, who appears to put his hands up high. Charlie pulls out his Numbers card, and releases a sudden gust of wind, whipping open numerous people's deck holders, even blowing away 1 of Yuma's Numbers, and destroying a light board, which drops down. People flee from the place it's going to fall on, and Charlie is in the middle of the falling donut board, but was exactly in it's middle and thus unharmed. Charlie thanks Yuma for his "Number 11: Big Eye" card (in the dub, he instead tells Yuma to apologize to Kari for him for leaving her), and leaves quickly. Kari comes riding up the the stairs with a motorcycle just after Charlie escaped.

Kari explains their father and Charlie's history together, and the 2 decide to work together on finding him, promising each other to do 'kattobingu'.

Astral tells Tori and Yuma about something he remembers Charlie saying, and they instantly go to where Astral thinks he is. However, the police already found him, and Charlie finds himself completely surrounded by police forces again. Yuma and friends sneak past security, and head in to the train Charlie is in front of, and while Charlie's luck blasts the station with a thunderbolt, activating the train and knocking out the police forces with the impact and the electric charge, Charlie jumps into the train as well.

Charlie laughs about escaping with his card, but behind him Yuma reports to his sister where they are, who instantly turns on her motorcycle.

Yuma demands his card (Number 11) back, but they agree they'll duel for the cards, "Lucky Straight" and "Big Eye". They head to the top of the train, at which they start their duel. Kari, riding next to the train, wonders what Yuma is up to, and Tori tells him it's not a good idea as well.

The train takes a sharp turn, and Charlie rehearses his catchphrase again, "Life is Carnival".

Featured Duel: Charlie McCay vs. WDC DuelistEdit

Charlie has two Set cards and 100 Life Points. His opponent has "Kachi Kochi Dragon" (2100/1300), "Thunder End Dragon" (3000/2000) and "Daigusto Phoenix" (1500/1100), all in Attack Position and 4000 Life Points.

Charlie's turn
Charlie activates "Reload", shuffling the three cards in his hand into his Deck and drawing the same amount. He then activates his face-down "Triple Ace", Special Summoning the three "Dice Leveler" (100/100) that he just drew in Attack Position. Charlie activates the effects of all three "Dice Leveler", rolling a die for each. The Level of each "Dice Leveler" will increase by an amount equal to the die roll. The result of each die is 6. Therefore, the Level of each "Dice Leveler" becomes 7 until the End Phase. Charlie overlays his three Level 7 monsters to Xyz Summon "Number 7: Lucky Straight" (700/700) in Attack Position. Charlie activates his face-down "Dream Dice", rolling a die. If it the result if 6, the ATK of all monsters his opponent controls will become 0. Otherwise, the ATK of all monsters Charlie controls will become 0. The result is 6. "Lucky Straight" attacks and Charlie activates its effect, detaching an Overlay Unit to roll a die. Its ATK will be multiplied by the die result. He gets a 6, so the ATK of "Lucky Straight" increases to 4200 (Opponent 4000 → 0).

Featured cardsEdit

The following cards appeared in this episode. Cards in italics debuted here.

Differences from the previewEdit

• The preview shows Charlie taking "Number 61: Volcasaurus" from Yuma. The card taken in the episode itself is "Number 11: Big Eye". "Volcasaurus" does not appear in any form.

Differences in adaptationsEdit

• The dots in the Dice Levelers are erased in the dub.