Bakura Ryou

Ryo Bakura, is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga.

Yami Bakura (Dark Bakura) is his other self, released from the power of the Millennium Ring. The two rarely directly converse. 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.

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 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.

Monster World
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 (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 miniatures, Dark Yugi (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 the hand controller by his other self 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 RPG 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 him.

Duelist Kingdom


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.

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 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
After Tea 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 Keith break's Marik's control over himself 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, Bobossa shows them the gate to the Millenium World. When the gang is about to go in, Bobossa 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.

Soon after Yami Bakura engages in a Dark RPG which recreated the events of Yami Yugi's own life. After Yami Bakura ventures to the Memory World through the Dark 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 Dark 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.

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

Voice/Mannerisms
In the original Japanese version, Bakura has a polite speaking matter, using many honorifics for others. The evil half however, uses them for only himself, going as far as to refer to himself as "ore-sama" (ore = a tough word for "I", -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". The evil half goes as far as to disrespect his opponents by calling them temee (a very offensive way of saying "you"). Reflecting this, Bakura in the English anime has a British accent, as does his evil self. 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 "yami no 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.

Deck
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.

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 Millenium Worlds 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.

Ryo Bakura and Yami Bakura often utilize separate Decks in the various Yu-Gi-Oh! video games.