Ryo Bakura

Ryo 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, Bakura's name is given in the traditional Japanese order and is rendered Bakura Ryo.

A classmate of Yugi Mutou and his circle of friends, Bakura is a student in Class 1-B at Domino High School. He is extremely polite, and uses honorifics in his speech almost all the time; in the 4Kids English-language dub of the series, he speaks with a British accent to represent this (conversely, the Singaporean English anime gives him a Western/Southern US accent).

Dark Bakura

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Dark Bakura in the 2nd series anime

While on a trip in Egypt, Bakura's father, the curator of the Domino City Museum, purchased an ornamental ring from a street peddler, which he gave to his son because - according to the animated series - it was connected with the Duel Monsters card game, which Bakura was fond of. In truth, this unassuming object was the Millennium Ring, one of the seven mystically-empowered Millennium Items. Contained within the Millennium Ring was an evil spirit, which took possession of Bakura, and came to be known as Yami no Bakura ("Dark Bakura," in English). Unlike the similar relationship between Yugi Mutou and the spirit of his Millennium Puzzle, the spirit of the ring is a malignant entity, and completely suppresses Bakura's soul when it takes over his body.

Fictional character biography

Monster World

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

Bakura debuts in volume six of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. A new transfer student to Domino High School, Bakura quickly acquires an array of romantic admirers, and befriends Yugi Mutou, Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey Wheeler in the English anime), Hiroto Honda (Tristan Taylor) and Anzu Mazaki (Téa Gardner) and invites them to join him in playing his favourite game, the RPG "Monster World" (a parody of Dungeons and Dragons). He cautions them, however, that everyone who has ever playe him has fallen into coma; this is the reason that he has been continuously transferring schools.

Upon touching Yugi's Millennium Puzzle, Bakura feels a sharp pain in his chest. 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, and Bakura opens his shirt to find the sharp points of the Ring sticking into his skin. The voice is that of the evil spirit of the ring, who has taken control of Bakura to acquire the Millennium Puzzle for himself. The magics of the ring have been responsible for sealing the souls of Bakura's former game-players into the lead miniatures used for the RPG, hence their falling into comas, and "Dark Bakura" does the same to P.E. teacher, Mr. Karita (who earlier had bullied Bakura over his effeminate looks and long hair). Subsequently, he sets up the game for Yugi and his friends to play, and seals each of their souls into miniatures, thinking that he will be able to take the Millennium Puzzle without interference. What he has failed to count upon, however, is "Dark Yugi" - the ancient spirit within the puzzle enters Yugi's soulless body, and challenges Bakura to a game of Monster World, with the kids' souls at stake. In the midst of the game, the true Bakura's personality partially emerges, taking control of his body's left hand and causing Dark Bakura to fumble several critical dice rolls. Enraged, Dark Bakura impales this hand on a tower spire on the game board, but Bakura transferred his soul into a pair of dice, which he then destroyed, killing himself and costing Dark Bakura the game when he could no longer roll the die. Dark Yugi banishes Dark Bakura in a penality game, and Bakura's Monster World avatar, "White Mage Bakura," uses his powers to bring the real Bakura back to life.

This storyline was adapted into Toei animation's Yu-Gi-Oh! anime with some changes. Here, Bakura had already been attending Dominio High School for some time before playing Yugi and his friends, and Miho Nosaka was also present for the Monster World game, having her soul sealed in a miniature as well.

Duelist Kingdom

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

Dark Bakura re-emerged when Yugi and his friends were participating in the Duelist Kingdom tournament on the private island of Duel Monsters creator Maximillion Pegasus, himself holder of another Millennium Item, the Millennium Eye. This made him a target for the evil spirit, who schemed to take the eye for himself.

This story arc was copied over into the second Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, by Studio Gallop and NAS, but as it was independent of the previous serious by Toei, it was necessary to re-introduce Bakura into the series in a different way. In this series, compelled by his Millennium Ring to do so, Bakura stowed away on the boat heading for the Duelist Kingdom, where he eventually met with Yugi and his friends. The series proceeded to re-imagine the Monster World encounter from the manga as a game of Duel Monsters, in which Dark Bakura sealed the souls of Yugi and his friends into cards, rather than miniatures. Again, Dark Yugi emerged and played Dark Bakura in the game, winning through the intervention of the true Bakura and banishing the evil spirit.

At the conclusion of the story arc, in both manga and anime, Pegasus lost the final duel of the championship to Yugi, and was confronted by Dark Bakura, who challenged him to a Shadow Game. Weakened by his duel with Yugi, Pegasus lost the game, and Bakura ripped the Millennium Eye from his head, expanding his collection to two items.

Battle City

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.

Millennium World

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.

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.

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