Bakura Ryou

Ryo Bakura 「獏良 了 Bakura Ryō」, is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga.

Bakura is actually two same-but-seperate entities. One is Bakura, a friend of Yugi Muto. The other is Yami Bakura (Dark Bakura), who is his other self released from the power of the Millennium Ring. The two rarely directly converse, and good Bakura refers to Yami Bakura only as a "voice". Unlike the relationship between Yugi Muto and Yami Yugi, Yami Bakura is a malignant entity, and has a separate mind, despite he and Bakura being the same person, and he completely suppresses the Good Bakura's soul when he takes over.

Character design


Bakura's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

In the Duelist Kingdom arc he wears a white wolly jumper and green undershirt. His usual outfit in following seasons consists a blue opened shirt over a blue and white horizontally striped t-shirt. His white hair is pointed downwards in various directions and trails half way down his back. As Dark Bakura his hair points in more directions. He wears the Millennium Ring on a lace around his neck. In the Battle City arc as Dark Bakura he often wears a KaibaCorp Duel Disk on his left arm.

Monster World Arc
Bakura meets Yugi and his friends Katsuya Jonouchi, Hiroto Honda, and Anzu Mazaki when he is transferred to Domino Junior/Senior 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).

That night, Bakura is busy writing a letter to his sister, Amane (who had earlier died in a traffic accident), 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.

Bakura sets up a miniture "Monster World" game, and the next day invites his friends to play (in the Toei anime, Miho Nosaka is also invited). Each of the group picks a type of monster they wish to play as, and Bakura seals them inside miniatures of their selected monsters. Yugi becomes a monster tamer, Jonouchi a warrior, Hiroto a magic gunman and Anzu as a magician. In the Toei anime Miho becomes a gypsy. With everyone else's souls sealed in minitures, Atemu (occuping Yugi's body) challenges Dark Bakura to free his friends.

The good personality managed to emerge during the RPG, taking control of the body's left hand. The good Bakura intentionally fumbled several critical dice rolls, giving Atemu an edge in the game. Once he realized this, Dark Bakura impaled his good self's controlled hand on a tower spire of the game board's castle, laughing madly. However, good 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.

The good 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 Bakura back to life. When doing this, his other self was placed back together with himself.

Duelist Kingdom


Bakura makes his first appearance in the anime series while on the cruise ship to Duelist Kingdom. Bakura was not selected by Maximillion Pegasus to be an official duelist in the tournament, and thus did not posses a Dueling Gauntlet and two star chips, which were required for entry onto the ship. Bakura first makes contact with the group when he confronts them at Duelist Kindgom (he is seen by Téa Gardner a few times prior to this; on the ship transporting them to Duelist Kingdom and in some woods, however she thought her mind was playing tricks on her). Here 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 RPG story arch. 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 the 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
Dark Bakura teams up with Marik Ishtar in a verbal deal consisting of Marik's relinquishment of the Millennium Rod if Bakura obtained the God Card "Slifer the Sky Dragon". Bakura stabbed his own body in the arm and presumably helped in the encapture of Joey and Tea when he left his injured good self to fend for himself.

He aquires a place in the Battle City finals by stealing another duelist's Duel Disk and locator card and wins the remaining locator cards required off Bonz.

He faces Yugi in the quarter-finals and narrowly lost, his other self's weakened body becoming a liability. Bakura is left in a coma. The Ring was 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, and eventually ends up in the hands of Yugi after Yugi defeats Marik. Bakura wakes from his coma after Yugi defeats Marik.

Millennium World
In the Millennium World arc Dark 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. He later challanges Seto Kaiba to a Duel but leaves before they can finish while he gives Kaiba the Millennium Eye, so he too may enter the Millennium World.

In the Memory World Dark Bakura is seen as his original self, before his reincarnation and the birth of his good alter ego, Thief King Bakura, where he serves as a Main Villian who summons Zorc Necrophades.

Dark Bakura, using the Millennium Ring, separated from regular Bakura in his reincarnated form only makes one major appearance where he duels Yugi, who has now been seperated from the Pharaoh.

Regular Bakura is last seen among the spectators in the final battle between Yugi and Atem.

Voice/Mannerisms
In the original Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bakura has a polite speaking matter using many honorifics. The evil half however, uses none, going as far as to refer to himself as oresama (ore = a tough word for "I", -sama = a very high honorific ending word). Reflecting this, Bakura in the English anime, possesses a British accent, as does his evil self (although he tends to treat other humans with great disrespect).

Deck
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 including "White Magical Hat", "Morphing Jar" and Bakura's favorite card "Change of Heart".

During the Battle City arc, he uses a new deck constructed by Dark Bakura, focusing on the darker side of the occult by making extensive use of Fiends. 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.

He plays another Fiend 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 a 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 that may be meant to symbolize the original Duel Monster spirits that were captured in stone.

In his final Duel of the series, Bakura plays an Undead Lock deck against Yugi Muto, which focuses upon winning the Duel by having one's opponent running out of cards.