Ryo Bakura

Ryō Bakura (獏良 了, Bakura Ryō) is a fictional character in the manga and anime series Yu-Gi-Oh!. In the English Duel Monsters anime, he is known as simply Bakura, and in the English Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul video game, Ryo's name is given in the traditional Japanese order and is rendered Bakura Ryo.

Bakura is a friend of Yugi Mutou (romanized as Yugi Muto in the English anime). He is also the holder of the Millennium Ring, one of the seven Millennium Items. Bakura received the Millennium Ring from his father, who had bought it while on a trip in Egypt; Bakura's father owns the Domino City Museum. In the anime Bakura's father was told that it was connected with the card battle game Duel Monsters (Magic and Wizards in the Japanese manga), which his son was fond of.

Contained within the Millennium Ring is an evil sprit known as Dark Bakura (Yami no Bakura) (Dark Bakura is called Yami Bakura and Spirit of the Ring in the English anime). The host Bakura never directly speaks to the Dark Bakura; the host only refers to him as a "voice".

In the original Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bakura, who is in class 1-B at Domino High School, is extremely polite in his speech pattern, using honorifics almost all the time. On the other hand, his dark half doesn't use honorifics; in addition, he also speaks of himself in a way that is highly self-centered (he tends to exclusiviely use ore-sama when referring to himself). (See Wikibooks:Japanese:Pronouns) In the American English anime, Bakura has a British accent to represent this speaking pattern, as does his evil counterpart (although he tends to treat other humans with great disrespect). In the Singaporean English anime, Bakura has a U.S. Southern accent.

Volumes 1-7 and First Series Anime

In the manga, Bakura first meets Yugi and his friends, Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey Wheeler in the English anime), Hiroto Honda (Tristan Taylor), and Anzu Mazaki (Téa Gardner) when he transfers to Domino High School. Bakura - who quickly garners a host of girls in admiration over him - explains that he loves playing the RPG "Monster World" (a parody of Dungeons and Dragons) but cautions the four that everyone who played with him fell into a coma. Because of this, he has to keep transferring schools. When he held Yugi's Millennium Puzzle, he felt a pain in his chest. In Toei's anime, Bakura already has been going to Domino High School for some time when he decided to play a RPG with Yugi.

Later that night, as he is writing to his younger sister, Amane (who later dies in a car accident), a voice in his head announced that he is its new host. Bakura opens his shirt to find the sharp points of the Ring sticking into his skin.

The voice is that of the Dark (Yami) Bakura, a 3,000-year old spirit from ancient Egypt (in the English anime he is a 5,000 year old spirit). Dark Bakura, at the time, had his mind set on taking the Millennium Puzzle for himself.

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In the Toei anime series, Bakura transforms Yugi and his friends into lead figurines for his RPG game (similar events occur in the manga)

After sealing the soul of a P.E. teacher, Mr. Karita (who earlier had bullied Bakura over his effeminate looks and long hair) into a miniature, Bakura set up the Monster World game. The next day, Yugi and his three friends play Bakura (in the Toei anime Miho Nosaka also comes to Bakura's apartment). Yugi (as Yugi (ユーギ Yugi)) plays as a monster tamer, Jonouchi (as Joey (Joe, ジョ Jō, in the Japanese version)) plays as a warrior, Honda (as Hiroto (ヒロト)) plays as a magic gunman, and Anzu (as Anzu (アンズ)) plays as a magician. In the Toei anime, Miho plays as a gypsy. Their souls were sealed into their respective miniatures through the powers of the Millennium Ring. Dark Yugi (Yami Yugi, Yami no Yūgi), being the only soul still occupying a flesh-and-blood body, challenges the Dark Bakura to a game.

The host personality managed to emerge during the RPG, taking control of the body's left hand. The host Bakura intentionally fumbled several critical dice rolls, giving Dark Yugi an edge in the game. Once he realized this, Dark Bakura impaled his host's controlled hand on a tower spire of the game board's castle, laughing madly. However, host Bakura would not be defeated and sealed his soul into a pair of possessed dice. He caused the dice to shatter, effectively ending the game and killing himself in the process. Dark Bakura was banished in a penalty game.

The host Bakura is dead when Dark Yugi reaches him. His avatar in the TRPG is still animated, and White Mage Bakura uses his power as a level 13 mage to bring the host Bakura back to life.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist, Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World, and Second series anime

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Dark Bakura in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World manga

In the anime Yami Bakura is referred to as just "Bakura". Almost everyone in the cast knows that the spirit is not the same person as the host due to the incident in Duelist Kingdom where Yugi and the regular Bakura both found out they were possessed by spirits. Yami Bakura had trapped Yugi and his friends in a Shadow Game where each of them were trapped as their favorite card on the playing field. Yami Yugi battled Yami Bakura for their souls. This is the anime corollary of the Monster World arc in the manga. Similar to the characters they played as in the RPG, Yugi was the Dark Magician, Joey was the Flame Swordsman, Tristan was the Cyber Commander, and Tea was the Magician of Faith.

Dark Bakura later takes the Millennium Eye from Maximillion Pegasus (Pegasus J. Crawford in the original Japanese) after defeating him in a Shadow Game, leaving but a bloody remnant of Pegasus afterwards. This expanded Bakura's collection to two Items.

He later teams up with Marik Ishtar in a verbal deal consisting of Marik's relinquishment of the Millennium Rod if the Dark Bakura obtained the God Card Slifer the Sky Dragon (Saint Dragon Osiris in the Japanese version). The Dark Bakura stabbed his host body in the arm and presumably helped in the encapture of Jonouchi and Anzu when he left his injured host to fend for himself. He later challenged Yugi and narrowly lost, his host's weakened body becoming a liability. The Ring was lost in the duel, but was returned by a controlled Anzu. Marik in Anzu's body insists on the Dark Bakura's assistance. A personality fragment of Marik had gained control of his body. The Dark Bakura challenged what was now Marik, and ultimately lost. The Ring then fell into the hands of the transformed Marik, and eventually ends up in the hands of Yugi after he defeats Marik.

Neither Bakura makes another notable appearance (save for the host Bakura pigging out on food in the kitchen of the Kaiba Corp blimp and in a conversation between Dartz and Atem about their resurrection into the Millennium Items) until the beginning of the last arc of the manga/episode 199 of the anime. In the anime, the host Bakura is chased into a church in the dead of night by a voice. He is trapped and the voice reaches a crescendo, shattering the stained glass of the windows as the host Bakura is re-possessed after a brief reprieve. The manga offers no such introduction.

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Dark Bakura in the 2nd series anime

There are many theories about who Dark Bakura's true identity is. Some argue that he is the spirit of tomb robber from Ancient Egypt 3,000 (5,000 in the English anime) years ago named Thief King Bakura. Others argue that he is none other than a part of the soul of the Great Demon Zorc Necrophades, an evil demon that threatened to destroy the world 3,000 (5,000 years ago in the English anime) years ago but was sealed up in the Millennium Puzzle by Pharaoh Atem. Still others argue that he is a composite of the two, a fusion of the souls of Bakura and Zorc. The anime never states how any soul ever entered the Millennium Ring (though the manga has a brief explanation saying that Zorc sealed a piece of his soul in the Ring), so it's mostly open to discussion. Given how both the anime and the manga give conflicting evidence about his identity and never clearly states with 100% assurance whether the soul in the Ring is Thief King Bakura or Zorc Necrophades, or whether both souls are in the Ring, it's almost impossible to say for certain who Dark Bakura truly is.

Deck

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Thief King Bakura as seen in the anime

Bakura uses an Occult Deck for the initial part of the show, using monsters that reflect his views on the supernatural. A great deal of his cards cause disruption, or breaking his opponent's strategies through various cards, which range from White Magical Hat to Morphing Jar. His favorite card is Change of Heart, a Magic Card that has the ability to take control of one of his opponent's monster for one turn.

During the Battle City arc, he uses a new deck constructed by Yami Bakura, focusing on the darker side of the occult by making extensive use of Zombies (Undead) and Fiends (Demons). The signature card of this deck is Dark Necrofear , a powerful monster that can only be Special Summoned by removing three Fiend Sub-Type monsters from his Graveyard. During his duel with Dark Yugi, he shows Dark Necrofear's true power once it is destroyed, bringing forth Dark Sanctuary. Dark Sanctuary enables him to cancel one attack from his opponent's side of the field and gain Life Points equal to half that monster's attack points and deal the same amount of Life Points as damage to his opponents. Furthermore, with Dark Sanctuary, he can use his Monster card zones for his Magic and Trap cards, from which he plays Destiny Board (Ouija Board in the original Japanese version of the franchise). Destiny Board writes out a letter of the word "Final" ("Death" in the Japanese version) every turn, using Magic and Trap zones for each of the letters. When the entire word is spelled out, he will automatically be victorious. With Dark Sanctuary's ability to allow Bakura to play Magic and Trap cards without restricting Destiny Board (as Destiny Board ultimately requires five Magic or Trap zones in order to fully function) and also halt his opponent's attacks, he has a huge advantage. Bakura appears to have his duel clinched against Dark Yugi until he feels the power of Yugi's Slifer the Sky Dragon.

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Ryō Bakura in the first series anime, with his name in kanji (獏良 了 Bakura Ryō) written on the chalkboard

He plays largely the same deck when he confronts Seto Kaiba in order to gain the power of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon for his own purposes, although the theme of it seems to be mix of his first two decks. Most of his cards revolve around sealing or otherwise crippling his opponent's monsters while protecting his own through cards such as Spirit Shield. He also uses various tablet cards meant to symbolize the original Duel Monster spirits that were captured in stone. When he summons Diabound Kernel, it reduces the attack points of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes and manages to absorb its power via defeating it. Bakura withdraws after getting what he wanted and also since Kaiba appeared to have turned the duel in his favor.

In his final duel of the series, Bakura plays an Undead Lock deck against Yugi Mutou, which focuses upon winning the duel by having one's opponent running out of cards. He eventually uses The Cursed Twin Dolls to call all monsters that would normally be sent to the Graveyard to his field as "phantoms", and in tandem with Counterbalance, the two are required to discard cards from their decks equal to the number of monsters on the field. Bakura further supplements this with Necro monsters that summon multiple copies of themselves for both defenses and to add to the cards discard by Counterbalance.

Reference

• Kazuki Takahashi (2002). Yu-Gi-Oh! Characters Guide Book - The Gospel of Truth (遊戯王キャラクターズガイドブック―真理の福音―). Shueisha. ISBN 4-08-873363-0