Ryo Bakura (manga)

Ryo Bakura is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. This is the original depiction of Ryo Bakura, as created by Kazuki Takahashi.

Bakura is a polite and slightly socially awkward friend of Yugi Mutou. He is interested in gaming, especially tabletop games, with his favorite being Monster World.

Bakura was the twenty first century holder of the Millennium Ring. This caused him to bear host to the evil spirit Dark Bakura, who could take control of Bakura's body when in possession of the Ring. Dark Bakura often manipulated Bakura to achieve his goals and turn games with Bakura's friends into Shadow Games. Despite knowing the danger of the Millennium Ring, Bakura was fond of keeping it close to him and keen on learning the secrets of the Millennium Items.

Monster World
Bakura came into possession of the Millennium Ring after his father bought it from an antique shop in Egypt. Unbeknownst to him at the time, it contained the soul of Dark Bakura, who gained the ability to take control of his body when he wore the Ring.

Bakura used to play Monster World with his friends. He created his own miniature, a White Wizard Bakura, which he brought up to level 13 through his games. However Dark Bakura would take control of Bakura, without him knowing, and turn the games into Shadow Games. As Dark Bakura defeated Bakura's friends, he inflicted the "Mind Doll" Penalty Game on them, trapping their souls in Monster World miniatures, leaving their human bodies in comas. Bakura was aware that his friends fell into comas when he played games with them, but had no knowledge of the causation. As a result, Bakura had to keep changing schools and isolated himself by living in an apartment.

When Bakura transferred to Domino High School, ha sat next to Katsuya Jonouchi and quickly befriended him. During the lunch break of Bakura's first day, Jonouchi introduced him to his friends Yugi Mutou, Anzu Mazaki and Hiroto Honda. Bakura was impressed to hear that Yugi's family owned a game store. He told his new friends about his interest in gaming and how he liked Monster World. The others liked the sound of Monster World and suggested that they play it the next day. Bakura reluctantly agreed, thinking about what happened when he played games with his older friends. Bakura asked Yugi about his Millennium Puzzle and was about to tell him that he had a similar item, but stopped after feeling a pain in his chest.

A group of girls, who thought Bakura was cute pulled him away from Jonouchi and the others to give him a tour of the school, although he was slightly uncomfortable about this. The gym teacher, Mr. Karita, spotted Bakura with the girls and called him over and acted disrespectful towards him. He also said that boys having long hair was against the school rules and ordered him to have his hair shaved by the next day. Bakura went into the bathroom afterwards, where he heard Dark Bakura for the first time, but thought he imagined it.

As he was leaving school, he met Yugi, Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda again, who asked about playing Monster World. However Bakura said that he could not play with them and told them about what happened to his older gaming friends.

At home, while Bakura was writing a letter to his sister, Amane, he heard Dark Bakura again. Dark Bakura introduced himself and said that he had been living inside of Bakura since he got the Millennium Ring. Bakura tried removing the Ring, but found that Dark Bakura had now pierced its prongs into his chest. As rent, Dark Bakura said that he had been granting Bakura wishes, including one to let him play games with his friends forever. He reminded Bakura of Karita before saying he was going to pay his rent tonight. Dark Bakura then took full control of him and defeated Karita in a Shadow Game.

Bakura skipped school the next day. Yugi, Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda came to his apartment to cheer him up. Bakura tried warning them to get out, but Dark Bakura took control, posed as Bakura, and invited them in to play a game of Monster World, which he turned into a Shadow Game.

Dark Bakura managed to trap the souls of Anzu, Jonouchi, Honda and Yugi in their miniatures. Dark Yugi then took control of Yugi's body and continued to play on their behalf. Dark Yugi succeeded in getting Honda's character to blow the left hand off of Dark Bakura's avatar, Zorc. Due to his connection with Zorc, Dark Bakura then lost control of his own left hand to Bakura. Bakura used that hand to make Dark Bakura miscalculate the damage Zorc inflicted on Yugi, Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda, so that they each still had one hit point remaining. He then typed on the laptop that he was not going to let Dark Bakura kill his friends or control him anymore. Dark Bakura slid the laptop to the other side of the table to stop Bakura interfering. However Bakura swapped Dark Bakura's brainwashed dice with regular dice on one turn and then threw the brainwashed dice on another turn, forcing Dark Bakura to get a 99, the worst possible roll. Frustrated by his meddling, Dark Bakura impaled his left hand on one of the diorama's towers to stop him. Yugi and his friends then began to suspect that the Bakura they were facing was not the same Bakura they befriended. Dark Yugi then got Yugi's character to use his training hand to pull the White Wizard Bakura out of Zorc's left arm.

The Wizard Bakura introduced himself as an NPC created by Bakura, who obeyed Bakura's will. Wizard Bakura lowered Zorc's defenses, allowing the others' attacks to do serious damage. When Zorc transformed into Last Zorc, Bakura used "White Magic Shining Shield" to defend the party from "Zorc Inferno". Not having the strength to defend them from another attack, he urged them to defeat Zorc on their next turn.

Dark Yugi's party came close to defeating Zorc. It came down to a lowest dice roll wins scenario between Dark Yugi and Dark Bakura, with Dark Bakura winning in the event of a tie. Both rolled 00. However Bakura had sealed his soul in Dark Bakura's brainwashed dice and was able to make them self-destruct, destroying his soul in the process.

Once Zorc was defeated, Dark Bakura collapsed and dropped the Millennium Ring. Dark Yugi checked on Bakura's body and reported that he was dead. However part of Bakura's soul still resided in the Wizard Bakura, so Dark Yugi rolled for the wizard who used his magic to return the soul back to Bakura's body. Everyone Dark Bakura trapped in miniatures returned to their own bodies afterwards.

A few days later, Bakura built a diorama as a memento of his and his friends adventure in Monster World.

Duelist Kingdom
At school, Bakura saw Yugi's grandfather, Sugoroku, on the on Yugi's camcorder and mistook the device for a video phone when Sugoroku spoke to him. Jonouchi explained that Dark Yugi lost a game of Duel Monsters to an apparent video recording of the Millennium Item holder, Maximillion Pegasus, after which Pegasus used his power to seal Sugoroku's soul in the videotape. Yugi and Jonouchi said that they would have to go to the Duelist Kingdom in order to return Sugoroku to normal and Bakura showed interest in going to the kingdom to learn the secrets of the Millennium Items. He shocked his friends by showing them he still carried the Millennium Ring, but insisted it was safe as long as he did not wear it. Bakura went to Yugi's house after school that day. He saw Yugi's invitation and watched a videotape Jonouchi received from his sister Shizuka, but initially mistook as another tape from Pegasus. Bakura then learned about Shizuka needing an operation to prevent her going blind.

One week later, Bakura went to Domino Pier to travel to Duelist Kingdom with Yugi, who was participating to save his grandpa and Jonouchi, who was also participating to save his sister, and Anzu and Honda who were travelling to support them. They had to spend the night on the floor of the ship's common room, but Bakura was optimistic and said it would be fun like a sleepover. That night, he helped get the rescue equipment after Jonouchi jumped overboard to try and save Yugi's "Exodia" cards that Insector Haga threw away.

Monster World figures
Bakura created his own Monster World avatar, Bakura, a White Wizard. He managed to bring its level up to 13.

Duel Monsters Deck
Although Bakura was not shown using it himself, he took pride in the "Occult" Deck that Dark Bakura used, saying he loved grotesque cards and referred to it as his Deck.

The Occult Deck relied on utilizing monsters which were in the Graveyard. Its main combo involved having "Dark Necrofear" in the Graveyard, where the spirit of its marionette would possess his opponents' monsters, while "Dark Necrofear" moved the planchette on "Destiny Board" to spell out "DEATH".