Penalty Game


 * For the card, see: Penalty Game!

A Penalty Game is a punishment given to someone who either loses or cheats in a Shadow Game. Millennium Item holders are capable of inflicting supernatural punishments.

Penalty Games played an important part in early Yu-Gi-Oh! storylines, but are used much less frequently when the main character, Yugi Mutou, decides to stop using them, being exclusively used by villains. The first series anime toned down the fatality of a number of Penalty Games, making some merely illusions.

Genuine
Penalty Games created by Millennium Item holders.

Dark Yugi
Dark Yugi's (Yami Yugi's) Penalty Games often act as poetic justice to a person, who trespassed on the souls of his friends, and for their own history of committing crimes and evils onto others. While some of these penalties are fatal, he has used them to help the person at times; The Mind Crush Penalty Game was used to shatter Seto Kaiba's tainted heart, so he could be given a chance to piece it together in order to become a good person again. While Penalty Games used illusions and magic on the loser's psyche and soul, some of the dangerous games played would merely boast devastating losses on their own even without the need of such powers.

In the second series anime, Mind Crush is the only Penalty Game shown to be used. Aside from sealing away Kaiba's evil side (instead of shattering his heart into fragments and turning it into a puzzle like in the manga), it has also been used to kill Ghost Kaiba (a shape-shifter that was hired by Pegasus as a Player Killer), PaniK, and rendered a mugger unconscious (the game in which the mugger lost was to draw a card, and whichever card is the strongest wins). In the Japanese version, these three victims disappear off the land or be in a state of unconsciousness, or in the dub, banished to the Shadow Realm. During this time, Dark Yugi wasn't that different from Dark Bakura or Dark Marik, aside from the fact that he used his shadow magic to defend the honor of his friends and wasn't just banishing people for fun or to gain power. The Mind Crush has not been used since PaniK, or seen since the flashback with the mugger, with no real explanation in the anime whereas an explanation was present in the manga. In anime terms, this is probably because Dark Yugi was beginning to learn compassion and kindness from Yugi and started learning how to beat his enemies without intimidating them with the use of Shadow Games and Penalty Games. So, theoretically, if people like Dark Bakura and Dark Marik had a similar relationship that Dark Yugi had with Yugi, they too would go through that kind of epiphany.

In the manga, a variety of different Penalty Games were used during Duelist Kingdom not unlike the previous chapters. Unlike the anime in which no explanation is given, Dark Yugi decides to stop using them after the defeat of Pegasus, because it would have proven that the Millennium Items indeed had an evil will.

Three of Dark Yugi's Penalty Games have cards based on them, which were released in Soul of the Duelist. These are "Greed", "Mind Crush" and "Mind on Air".

Shadi
Shadi uses Penalty Games to punish people who disturb the territory of the gods. Professor Kanekura was one of Shadi's victims after he defiled an Egyptian tomb. In the anime, Kanekura had tried to sell the Millennium Puzzle. Ammit was let into Kankura's soul room to pass judgment. In the manga this caused Kankura to die. In the anime, he wakes up and screams one time. Professor Yoshimori is spared of a Shadow and Penalty Game, as Shadi uses him for a Shadow Game against Yugi.

Dark Bakura
Dark Bakura's (Yami Bakura's) Penalty Games at the beginning of the manga turn the victims into figurines to use in Monster World. During Battle City, he kills "Ghost" Kotsuzuka (Bonz) after beating him in Duel Monsters. In the English second series anime, he instead sends Bonz to the Shadow Realm (In the Japanese version, he sent him to Hell).

Pegasus
Pegasus uses Penalty Games for personal gain, often trapping the souls of the victims in the "Soul Prison" card. He trapped Sugoroku Mutou's soul into a video tape (Soul Prison card in the anime) after beating Yugi, to force Yugi into entering Duelist Kingdom. He also trapped Mokuba Kaiba's in a card and later Seto Kaiba's after beating him in a Duel. In the manga, after Jonouchi beat Bandit Keith in a duel, Pegasus forced Keith to shoot himself in the head for cheating. In the anime, there's an inconsistency where Pegasus is shown giving a Penalty Game to Mokuba without playing a game with him. In the manga, it is assumed he played a game with Mokuba off-screen and then trapped him in a Mind Card.

Marik
Dark Marik traps Mai's soul in an hourglass after defeating her. Here, she is consumed by insects and given 24 hours to live, in which when time passes, her brain tissues would be completely devoured. In the anime, the insects are replaced with sand and the time to live is extended. In the English anime, the hourglass exists in the Shadow Realm.

Artificial
Reproductions of the genuine Penalty Games, using means other than the supernatural powers of the Millennium Items.

Kaiba
Seto Kaiba creates artificial Penalty Games for the loser of Games in Death-T. Some include leaving the victim be attacked by a series of monster holograms, such as Doppel-ganger.

Kyoji Yagumo
Kyoji Yagumo applies a Penalty Game on Eviluder after he loses his Duel against Yuma. As his design and implicitly his Deck, his Penalty Game also is based on spiders.