Ryo Bakura is a major recurring character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga. In the English version, his name is Ryo Bakura, but is only called "Bakura"; as per Japanese custom, the other characters are not close enough to call him by his first name.
Yami Bakura (Dark Bakura) is his other self, released from the power of the Millennium Ring. The two rarely directly converse. Unlike the close, cooperative relationship between Yugi Muto and Yami Yugi, Yami Bakura is a malignant entity that completely suppresses Ryo's spirit when he takes over.
Design
Bakura's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.
In the Duelist Kingdom arc he wears a white wool sweater and green undershirt. His usual outfit in following seasons consists of a blue opened shirt over a light blue and white horizontally striped t-shirt. His white hair is pointed downwards in various directions and trails half way down his back. He wears the Millennium Ring on a lace around his neck. In Millennium World, Thief King Bakura is shown with a red robe that openly shows his muscular chest, and has 4-stitched scar under his right eye.
In the first series, Bakura has green eyes, and his hair is pale blue; Yami Bakura has purple eyes. In the second series, both Bakuras have brown eyes and white hair.
First series anime biography
Monster World
Bakura in the first series anime.
Bakura meets Yugi Mutou and his friends Katsuya Jonouchi, Hiroto Honda, Anzu Mazaki, and Miho Nosaka when he is transferred to Domino High School. Bakura tells his new friends that he has a love for games of all types, particularly the RPG "Monster World". However for some mysterious reason that he can not explain, everyone who has played with him has fallen into a coma. This is the main reason he transfers schools so often. When Yugi allowed him to hold the Millennium Puzzle, Bakura felt a sharp pain in his chest (later revealed to be the Millennium Ring stabbing into his chest to prevent him from removing it.).
That night, Bakura is busy writing a letter to his sister, Amane (who died in a traffic accident, but Ryo writes letters to her while she is in heaven), a voice announces that he is its new host. Bakura looks down in horror to find that the sharp points of the Millennium Ring are jabbing into his skin. This voice is Dark Bakura, a 3,000 year old ancient spirit from Egypt (Yami Bakura is a 5,000 year old spirit in the English anime), who has his sights set on acquiring the Millennium Puzzle. It also reveals that it has been the one responsible for his friends comas sealing their souls within Bakura's game pieces, twisting Bakura's subconscious desire to be able to play games with his friends forever.
Dark Bakura sets up a miniature Monster World game, and the next day invites his friends to play. Each of the group picks a type of monster they wish to play as, and Dark Bakura seals them inside miniatures of their selected monsters (in order to steal the Millennium Puzzle). Yugi becomes a monster tamer, Jonouchi a warrior, Hiroto a magic gunman, Anzu as a magician and Miho becomes a gypsy. But Dark Yugi (occupying Yugi's body) challenges Dark Bakura to free his friends.
The good personality of Bakura managed to emerge during the RPG, taking control of the his left hand. The good Bakura intentionally fumbled several critical dice rolls, giving Dark Yugi an edge in the game. Once Dark Bakura realized this, he stabbed the hand controlled by his other self on a castle tower of the game board, laughing madly, which made Dark Yugi realize he wasn't battling the real Bakura. Later on into the game, Ryo joined the others as a player in the game (the white mage). The Dark Bakura was furious at this and proceeded to attack the defenseless players. However, Ryo wouldn't let that happen and created a barrier between them and the attack. Unfortunately he ran out of magic and had to use the last of his HP (killing his character in the process). However, good Bakura would not be defeated and sealed his soul into the pair of possessed dice that Dark Bakura was cheating with. Then he revealed his plans to lose the game for his friends by shattering the possessed dice (which would kill both Bakuras in the process) to Dark Bakura. Hearing this, Dark Bakura tried using the power of the Millennium Ring to destroy Bakura's soul. But it was too late; Bakura caused the dice to shatter, effectively ending the game and killing himself in the process.
Luckily Bakura survived the incident and when the game ended the others were revived as well.
Second series anime biography
Duelist Kingdom
Bakura as "Change of Heart".
Bakura is first seen in the first episode, watching Yugi Muto duel Joey Wheeler, and then again when Joey is dueling Téa Gardner. His face is not seen until he is on the cruise ship to the Duelist Kingdom Tournament. Bakura was not selected by Maximillion Pegasus to be an official duelist in the tournament, and thus did not possess a Dueling Gauntlet and two star chips, which were required for entry onto the ship. In the manga, Bakura went on the boat with Yugi and his friends. In the anime, Bakura first makes contact with the group when he confronts them on the island, although he is seen by Téa Gardner a few times prior to this, however she thought her mind was playing tricks on her. His favorite card was revealed to be Change Of Heart, most likely to represent him and his darker self.
In the anime, Yami Bakura traps Yugi Muto, his friends and the good Bakura into their favorite Duel Monster cards, leaving Yami Yugi to save his friends lives. This is the anime's outlook on the first series anime and manga's Monster World RPG story arc. To further support this, the cards each member inhabits are similar to that of which they inhabited in the RPG. When defeated, Yami Yugi sent Yami Bakura to the Graveyard. During Yugi and Joey's Duel against The Paradox Brothers, Bakura found out that Yami Bakura was his evil self, as he was told this by Yami Bakura.
Bakura stayed with the group up until Yugi's defeat of Maximillion Pegasus. After which Yami Bakura challenges Pegasus to another Shadow Game, and defeats him, taking his Millennium Eye.
Battle City
After Téa told Bakura that Yugi's Puzzle was stolen, Yami Bakura took over and used his Ring to locate the Puzzle. When Yami Bakura detected that the Millennium Puzzle was nearby, he saw Yugi dueling with Bandit Keith, possessed by Marik Ishtar. After He breaks Marik's control over Keith the good Bakura takes over. Keith shattered the Millennium Puzzle and Ryo Bakura went to Yugi's rescue, knocking Keith back. Yami Bakura took advantage of the opportunity to seal a fragment of his soul into a piece of the Millennium Puzzle.
Bakura is stabbed in the arm by Yami Bakura as part of Yami Bakura and Marik Ishtar's plan to get the trust of Yugi. Ryo doesn't know how he got the injury, but Marik helps him out, winning the trust of Yugi's friends.
Although Yami Bakura manages to collect a Duel Disk and the required number of Locator Cards to enter the finals, Ryo tells his friends that he acquired them himself, but doesn't go into details on how he got them. Yugi is shocked that Bakura is still hanging onto the Ring.
Yami Bakura faces Yugi in the quarter finals and narrowly loses. But to avoid defeat Marik orders Yami Bakura to let Ryo take control. With Ryo, weaker than Yami Bakura and still injured from the stab, Yugi's last attack would cause a critical injury to Bakura. Yami Bakura refuses to take the risk, as he needs Ryo Bakura to survive. He retakes control and lets Yugi attack him. Bakura is left in a coma and the Ring is lost in the Duel, but was returned by Téa being controlled. Marik in Téa's body insists on Bakura's assistance. An evil self of Marik had gained control of his body. Yami Bakura challenged what was now Marik, and ultimately lost. The Ring then fell into the hands of Yami Marik, After Yugi defeats Marik, Marik relinquishes the ring to Yugi for Ryo's own safety. Bakura wakes from his coma after Yugi defeats Marik.
Millennium World
In the Millennium World Yami Bakura takes the Millennium Ring back from Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood, who mistakenly took Yugi's Millennium Items while trying to steal his Egyptian God Cards. In the manga, Ryo tags along with his friends to the museum. There, Bobasa shows them the gate to the Millennium World. When the gang is about to go in, Bobasa says Ryo isn't allowed because he has a dark evil surrounding him. Ryo runs out crying. Dark Bakura says he doesn't need him anymore anyway, and leaves him, going into the Millennium World.
Bakura unconscious on the RPG table.
Soon after Yami Bakura engages in a Shadow RPG which recreated the events of Yami Yugi's own life. After Yami Bakura ventures to the Memory World through the Shadow RPG, Ryo is finally free from his control following the destruction of Zorc and the subsequent destruction of Yami Bakura due to the fact that Yami Bakura merged his spirit with Zorc's in the past therefore when Zorc was destroyed, so was Yami Bakura because his spirit would no longer exist in the present time. To clarify, during the Shadow RPG, Yami Bakura transferred his spirit and Yami Yugi's to their Millennium World counterparts, therefore Yami Bakura became one with Zorc which is why he was destroyed when Zorc was. After the game, Ryo was seen collapsed on the R.P.G. table, and Joey thought it was a good idea to give Bakura's ring back to Yugi.
Ryo Bakura travels with Yugi and co. to Egypt to witness Atem's departure and the Ceremonial Battle.
Voice/Mannerisms
In the original Japanese version, Bakura has a polite speaking matter, using many honorifics for others. The evil half however, mainly uses them for only himself, going as far as to refer to himself as "ore-sama" (ore = a tough word for "I"("ore" and "boku" words for "I" is for men. Women mostly use "watashi")), -sama = a very high honorific suffix, the rough translation would be something along the lines of "My honorable self"). The western pendant to this habit is the "Pluralis Maiestatis", commonly known as the "royal we". He has also called Yami Yugi "Ou-Sama", or "Your majesty", but it can be easily assumed he was mocking Yami Yugi. The evil half goes as far as to disrespect his opponents by calling them temee (a very offensive way of saying "you").
To represent the good Bakura's polite manner of speech, the English dub gives Bakura a British-English accent, with Yami Bakura's voice sounding deeper and more sinister while keeping the accent. In the Singaporean dub, Bakura speaks with a Southern-American accent.
The darker half is an excellent actor, and has been shown on numerous occasions to mimic his surface self well enough to fool even his friends. He also has unfailing arrogance, likely stemming from the fact that even a "shadow game" cannot permanently defeat him; in both Duelist Kingdom and the Battle City Finals, he manages to avoid destruction despite losing first to Yami Yugi, then to Yami Marik. In the English anime, he is highly mocking of his opponents, such as sarcastically telling Yami Yugi "It's a game, you should try to have fun" during the dark RPG in the final season.
Deck
Anime
While Bakura himself hasn't ever been shown using the Deck in either the manga or anime, it's implied that the first two Decks that Yami Bakura used were actually built by Ryo.[1]
During Duelist Kingdom, Bakura's Deck is based on disrupting, or breaking his opponent's strategies through various cards including "White Magical Hat", "Morphing Jar" and Bakura's favorite card "Change of Heart". His Yami uses this deck for his extempore Tarot-Session with Pegasus, and it is implied, that the entire deck was created under this point of view, since the Japanese name of Bakura's "Lady of Faith" is "Highpriestess", one of the traditional cards in a Tarot-Deck (usually associated with wisdom and love).
Bakura used an Occult Deck during Battle City, focusing on the darker side of the occult by making extensive use of Fiend monsters. The signature card of this Deck is "Dark Necrofear". Using "Dark Necrofear" with "Dark Sanctuary", "The Dark Door" and "Dark Spirit of the Silent" he had total control over opposing monsters while "Destiny Board" gathers "Spirit Messages" to declare an automatic win. Although only Yami Bakura was shown using the Occult Deck, Ryo claimed to be fond of grotesque cards and that he had a pretty good Occult Deck.
During Millennium World, Bakura further adds to his Occult Deck and it now incorporates monsters that reflect on his ancient self Thief King Bakura, such as the Diabound Kernel, which refers to Thief King Bakura's Ka Diabound, as well as using Spirit Shield, which Thief King also used to protect his Ka and the tablet cards.
Video games
Ryo Bakura and Yami Bakura often utilize separate Decks in the various Yu-Gi-Oh! video games.
World Championship Tournament 2004
- Bolt Escargot
- Candle of Fate
- Curtain of the Dark Ones
- Droll Bird
- Earthbound Spirit
- Eyearmor
- Fiend's Hand
- Ganigumo
- Hinotama Soul
- Hitodenchak
- Hyozanryu
- LaLa Li-Oon
- Lucky Trinket
- Madjinn Gunn
- Mikazukinoyaiba
- Misairuzame
- Petit Dragon
- Phantom Ghost
- Prevent Rat
- Steel Ogre Grotto #1
- Winged Egg of New Life
- Zarigun
Nightmare Troubadour
Deck
Deck Recipe
References
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