Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yu-Gi-Oh!
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Yu-Gi-Oh!

Yu-Gi-Oh! (Japanese: 遊☆戯☆王, Hepburn: Yū Gi Ō; lit.'Game King') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump between September 1996 and March 2004, with its chapters collected in 38 tankōbon volumes. The series follows Yugi Mutou, a teenager who solves the ancient Egyptian Millennium Puzzle. This causes Yugi to become host to a gambling alter-ego or spirit who solves his conflicts with various games. As the manga progresses, the focus largely shifts to the card game Duel Monsters (originally known as Magic & Wizards), where opposing players "duel" one another in mock battles of fantasy monsters.

The manga series has spawned a media franchise that includes multiple spin-off manga, anime series, video games, and a real-world card game, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, based on the fictional Duel Monsters game. The first anime series adaptation, simply titled Yu-Gi-Oh! and produced by Toei Animation, aired from April to October 1998, while the second one, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, produced by NAS and animated by Gallop, aired from April 2000 to September 2004.

Yu-Gi-Oh! has become one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.

Yu-Gi-Oh! follows Yugi Mutou, a timid high schooler who is frequently bullied. Yugi loves to play games and, at the beginning of the series, is solving the Millennium Puzzle (千年パズル, Sennen Pazuru), an Ancient Egyptian artifact, hoping that it will grant him his wish of making friends. Yugi eventually completes the Puzzle, causing his body to become the host to a mysterious spirit with the personality of a gambler. From that moment onwards, whenever Yugi or any of his friends is threatened, the spirit, briefly possessing Yugi, challenges the antagonist to Shadow Games (闇のゲーム, Yami no Gēmu; lit. "Game of Darkness") that reveal that person's true nature, with the loser often being subjected to an adverse Penalty Game (罰ゲーム, Batsu Gēmu). Yugi and his friends gradually learn of the spirit's existence, referring to him as the "other Yugi".

As the series progresses, Yugi and his friends learn that the spirit is actually that of a nameless Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, who had lost his memories after being sealed inside the Puzzle. As Yugi and his companions attempt to help the Pharaoh regain his memories, they find themselves going through many trials as they wager their lives facing off against those who wield the other Millennium Items (千年アイテム, Sennen Aitemu) and the dark power of the Shadow Games.

In the initial planning stages of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Takahashi had originally wanted to draw a horror manga. Although the end result was a manga revolving around games, some horror elements influenced certain aspects of the story. Takahashi decided to use "battle" as his primary theme. Since there were so many manga based around fighting, he found it difficult to come up with something original. He decided to create a battle manga where the main character does not hit anybody, but also struggled with that limitation. When the word "game" came to mind, he found it much easier to work with.

When an interviewer asked Takahashi if he tried to introduce younger readers to real life gaming culture referenced in the series, Takahashi explained that he simply included "stuff he played and enjoyed", and that it may have introduced readers to role-playing games and others. He added that he created some of the games seen in the series, stressing the importance of "communication between people" that is often present in tabletop role-playing games but absent in solitary video games and especially over the Internet, where quality communication is near impossible.

Takahashi had always been interested in games, claiming to have been obsessed as a child and remained interested in them as an adult. In a game, he considered the player to become a hero. He decided to base the Yu-Gi-Oh! series around such games and used this idea as the premise; Yugi was a weak, immature boy, who became a hero when he played games. With friendship being one of the major themes of Yu-Gi-Oh!, he based the names of the two major characters "Yūgi" and "Jōnouchi" on the Japanese word yūjō, which means "friendship". Henshin, the ability to turn into something or someone else, is something Takahashi believed all children dreamed of. He considered Yugi's "henshin" Dark Yugi, a savvy, invincible games player, to be a big appeal to children.

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