Yami Yugi

Yami Yugi, known as Dark Yugi in the manga and Japanese versions is the spirit of Pharaoh Atem that has been sealed in the Millennium Puzzle.

After Yugi Muto solved the Millennium Puzzle, Yami Yugi resided in Yugi's body and would take possession of it when Yugi or his friends were in danger. After Yugi became fully aware of Yami's existance, Yugi could voluntary give control of his body to Yami.

Design
Yugi's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

As he exists in Yugi's body, his appearance is largly the same as Yugi's, although many alterations are made when Yami takes control.

Yami Yugi's hair features multiple layers including long blond crocked, pointy locks for his fringe, the rest features a six large spikes colored black with magenta rims all along the edges. The spikes were lose and free flowing at the beginning of the manga, but over time became stiffer.

At the beginning of the series, his outfit consists of the standard male Domino High uniform complete with a closed buckled collar and a set of Ankhs on his sleeves, which weren't present when Yugi was in control. The Ankhs were later removed. Unlike Yugi, Yami Yugi sometimes wears the jacket as a cape.

He wears the Millennium Puzzle on a lace around his neck. The lace is later replaced with a chain.

When he and Téa took a day together to find out about the Millennium Puzzle, he wore a black linen and several pieces of wrist-chains, to match the Millenniu Puzzle's chain.

Origin
Pharaoh Atem defeated Zorc Necrophades, sacrificing his life in the process. He used his name as part of a spell that sealed part Zorc and his own souls in the Millennium Items. Atem's got sealed in the Millennium Puzzle. The puzzle was shattered and laid to rest in the Pharaoh's tomb.

3,000 years later (5,000 in the English anime), Yugi Muto solved the Millennium Puzzle, which caused the Pharaoh's spirit to inhabit Yugi's body. The Pharaoh's soul, which comes to be known as "the other Yugi" or "Yami Yugi" (Dark Yugi in the manga) is now missing the vast majority of its memories.

Shadow Games
The Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and first series anime told a number of stories, where Dark Yugi helped Yugi and his friends by playing dangereous games with those who trespassed on their souls. These games often resulted in harsh Penalty Games for the loser. The majority of these storylines were skipped in the second series anime.

Early games


Yugi solved the Puzzle while he was under the pressure of coming up with money to pay Ushio, for his self imposed body guard fees. Dark Yugi emerged and met up with Ushio. He challenged Ushio to a Shadow Game invloving grabbing money off their own hand with a knife. Ushio got greedy and tried to kill Yugi. Dark Yugi inflicted a Penalty Game on him for cheating. Ushio was put under the illusion that trash and leaves were money, which he was left shower himself in. In the anime, the Shadow Game was completly changed. A deck of cards, which Dark Yugi pretended was the money, was placed on top of a dome and both players hung freely from a rope over around the spike at the top of the dome. How they advanced to the top was dictated by what card they turned over. Ushio attempted to cheat, earning him a Penalty Game, where he imagined he fell into a pit of monsters.

A director from ZTV tries to orchestrate a bullying scene, by having A.D. Fujita attack Yugi. Dark Yugi does not tolerate this and later plays a dice Shadow Game with the director, where the lowest roll wins. After winning, he inflicts a penalty game on the director, pixellating his vision.

The untalented singer, Sozoji, forces Yugi and Tomoya Hanasaki to sell tickets to his concert, and subsequently beats up Hanasaki for letting Yugi take his burden of tickets. This sets him up as Dark Yugi's next victim. Dark Yugi and Sozoji play a game of silence. The first person to make a sound, loses. Sozoji notices how Yugi might lose. With Yugi's life on the line, his heart pounds as he gets excited about winning. But his heartbeat becomes amplified by his microphone connected to nearby speakers. A noise is detected from Sozoji's account, making him lose the game. Subjected to one of Dark Yugi's Penalty Games, Sozoji continues to hear his heart beat louder and louder.

When Anzu is held captive by an escaped convict armed with a gun at Burger World, Yugi is made serve the convict cigarettes and alcohol. Dark Yugi takes control and challanges the convict to a game. With Anzu blindfolded she can't see who's challanging the convict. It sounds like Yugi's voice, but this man is too confident and daring to be Yugi. Playing a Shadow Game, where each player can only move one finger, Dark Yugi places the cigarette lighter on the convict's arm, while it continues to fill his drink leaving it overflow. In the manga the prisoner is set on fire. In the anime, he cheats by removing the lighter and is left subject to a Penalty Game, where he is made think he is on fire. After this incident, Anzu obsesses over finding the identity of her rescuer.

The self-proclaimed psychic Kokurano tries to seuduce Anzu, by reading her future telling her how she'll meet a wonderful man, who will reveal himself to her and she will swoon before him in love. Anzu hopes this is the man who saved her at Burger World. For Yugi's disbelief in his powers, Kokurano says that in Yugi's furure countless letters will fall from the heavens and bring disaster upon him. Later that day Kokurano knocks over bookshelves on top of Yugi. Dark Yugi emerges and realizes that Kokurano is making his predictions come true and rushes to Anzu, who Kokurano has knocked out with a bottle of chloroform. Using the bottle, Dark Yugi defeats him in a Shadow Game. Kokurano is left unconscious from the chloroform.

Death-T
After Seto Kaiba steals Sugoroku Mutou's "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card, Dark Yugi and Kaiba engage in a game of Duel Monsters, which becomes a Shadow Game. Kaiba tries to use use "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" against him, but "Blue-Eyes" true loyalties do not lie with him. The "Blue-Eyes" betrays Kaiba and switches to Dark Yugi's control, allowing Dark Yugi to win. For Kaiba's Penatly Game, he is made believe he is trapped in the Duel Monsters's world, where he suffers death at the hands of monsters.

To get revenge on Yugi for defeating his brother, Mokuba Kaiba plays Capsule Monster Chess with Yugi. He uses a rigged dispensor to give him high level pieces and give Yugi low level ones. Mokuba's gang are surprised to see Yugi change into Dark Yugi, but Mokuba had been hoping for this. He had heard of the other Yugi from Seto and aimed to defeat that persona. Dark Yugi lures Mokuba into lining his pieces diagonally to be defeated by "Torigun". As a Penalty Game, Mokuba imagines he trapped in a giant Capsule Monster Chess Capsule.

Mokuba later invites Yugi to Kaiba's mansion. Here he lures Yugi and Jonouchi into a game involving a rotating plate with different meals on it. Jonouchi gets poisoned by one of the meals he eats. Dark Yugi realizes that Mokuba is cheating by using a salt container as a switch to stop the plate. Using the Millennium Puzzle to smash the container, he leaves a poisoned meal in front of Mokuba and Mokuba is made hand over the antidote.

The next day Yugi and his friends participate in Kaiba's Death-T game. After Honda is trapped in a room of falling bricks, Yugi admits to his friends, that he thinks there is another person inside him. After this Dark Yugi helps takes part in the remaining rounds of Death-T.

Dark Yugi defeats Mokuba in another game of Capsule Monster Chess. Kaiba inflicts an artificial Penalty Game on Mokuba, but Dark Yugi saves him. Mokuba initially can't undrstand why Dark Yugi would save him. He explains how Seto was not always evil and asks Dark Yugi, if he can save Seto.

He faces Seto Kaiba in the final round in a game of Duel Monsters. He uses Sugoroku's Deck, but has is on the brink of losing after Kaiba Summons 3 "Blue-Eyes White Dragons". Dark Yugi manages to draw the complete set of "Exodia", defeating Kaiba. Rather than use the Penalty Game to punish Kaiba, he Mind Crushes him, dispelling his evil side.

Monster World
Yugi and his friends visit Ryo Bakura to play Monster World. Dark Bakura, who has eyes set on the Millennium Puzzle takes over Bakura's body and plays against them, turning the game into a Shadow Game.

Confident of the existance of Dark Yugi, Yugi delibratly lets Dark Bakura turn him into a Monster World figure for the duration of the game, so Dark Yugi can take control of his body, allowing the two Yugi's to meet for the first time.

Yami Yugi continues the game, using his friends as figures and trying to keep them alive. Similar to Dark Bakura, Dark Yugi manages to rig a few dice rolls in his favor. Both players agree to disallow rigging the rolls, but Dark Yugi is able to channel his friends feelings into the dice, scoring some effective rolls.

With the help of his friends and Ryo Bakura, Dark Yugi manages to defeat Dark Bakura's Dark Master Zorc winning the game.

Duel Monsters
The plot shifted to a Duel Monsters centered universe, after a while. Many of these events are covered in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist manga. They were also shown in the second series anime, which also contained a number of additional storylines.

Toei's film and Yu-Gi-Oh! R also added additional storylines to this part of Dark Yugi's life.

Yu-Gi-Oh! the Movie
Seto Kaiba steals the card "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" from Shougo Aoyama, to force Yugi to duel him in a game of Duel Monsters.

Dark Yugi duels Seto Kaiba with Shouga's "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", but refuses to play it until Shougo gains the courage to duel. Shouga finally gains the courage and Yugi Summons "Red-Eyes" and fuses it with "Meteor Dragon", Summoning "Meteor Black Dragon". He uses "Metero Black Dragon" to destroy Kaiba's 3 "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", which are bound together with "Wicked Chain", winning the Duel.

Yu-Gi-Oh! the Movie Pyramid of Light
Yugi is invited to a Duel against Seto Kaiba.

Kaiba forces Yami Yugi to Summon the Egyptian Gods and uses the card "Pyramid of Light" to remove them from play. Kaiba attempts to destroy "Pyramid of Light", with "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon", but Anubis, who had planted the card on Kaiba refuses to let this happen. He emerges from the ground, tosses Kaiba aside and continues the Duel in his place, to get his on revenge on the Pharaoh. Anubis forces Yugi inside the Millennium Puzzle, leaving Yami continue the Duel by himself.

Anubis brings out "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia". Yami uses "Monster Reborn" on "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon", which he uses to destroy "Pyramid of Light". This causes the 2 Sphinxes to merge into "Theinen the Great Sphinx". Yami Yugi uses "Reverse of Reverse" to activate Kaiba's "Return from the Different Dimension" to Special Summon the Egyptian Gods. He then Tributes Ra and Slifer to use Obelisk's effect, destroying "Theinen" and droping Anubis' Life Points to 0.

After Anubis defeat, a monster emerges from the Pyramid of Light. Seto Kaiba gives Yugi, "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon" to use against the monster. Yugi and Yami Yugi together Summon Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon and defeat the monster with it.

Millennium World
Yami ventures to find the memory world to learn his name and fight the same evil. which threatened the world thousand of years ago again. In order to do this, he plays the Dark RPG against Yami Bakura. These events are covered in the Millennium World manga and second series anime.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
In the series finale of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yugi transports Jaden Yuki to the past to duel Yugi shortly after the Battle City finals. Seeing Jaden to be a strong duelist, Yugi switches to Yami Yugi to continue the Duel.

Deck
Yami Yugi usually Duels using Yugi's Decks. On occassions he has had his own Deck, including the Ceremonial Battle. Here his Deck revolved around Summoning the Egyptian Gods and also contained a number of "Dark Magician" support cards.