Bakura Ryou

Family: Father ( though we never see him) and a deceased younger sister Amane Bakura

Voice: (English) Ted Lewis (Japanese) Tsutomu Kashiwakura, Yumi Urushikawa, Rika Matsumoto

History and Personality: Bakura is a friend of Yugi Moto He is also the holder of the Millennium Ring, one of the seven Millennium Items. Bakura received the Millennium Ring from his father, who had bought it while on a trip in Egypt; Bakura's father owns the Domino City Museum. In the anime Bakura was told that it was connected with the card battle game Duel Monsters, which his son was fond of. Contained within the Millennium Ring is an evil sprit known as Dark Bakura (Yami no Bakura) (Dark Bakura is called Yami Bakura and Spirit of the Ring in the English anime). The host Bakura never directly speaks to the Dark Bakura; the host only refers to him as a "voice". The ring itself, in addition to being home to the spirit, also possesses the power to locate other millennium items and to seal souls.

In the original Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bakura, who is in class 1-B at Domino High School, is extremely polite in his speech pattern, using honorifics almost all the time. On the other hand, his dark half doesn't use honorifics. In the English anime, Bakura has a British accent to represent this speaking pattern.

Though the English dub begins with the "Second series" of Yu-Gi-Oh! (the Japanese Duel Monster series - known in America as Duelist Kingdom.) Bakura does play a relatively large role in the first series and the early manga.

Volumes 1-7 and First Series Anime - In the manga, Bakura first meets Yugi and his friends, Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey Wheeler in the English anime), Hiroto Honda (Tristan Taylor), and Anzu Mazaki (Téa Gardner) when he transfers to Domino High School. Bakura - who quickly garners a host of girls in admiration over him - explains that he loves playing the RPG "Monster World" (a parody of Dungeons and Dragons) but cautions the four that everyone who played with him fell into a coma. Because of this, he has to keep transferring schools. When he held Yugi's Millennium Puzzle, he felt a pain in his chest. In Toei's anime, Bakura already has been going to Domino High School for some time when he decided to play a RPG with Yugi.

Later that night, as he is writing to his younger sister, Amane (who later dies in a car accident), a voice in his head announced that he is its new host. Bakura opens his shirt to find the sharp points of the Ring sticking into his skin.

The voice is that of the Dark (Yami) Bakura, a 3,000-year old spirit from ancient Egypt (in the English anime he is a 5,000 year old spirit). Dark Bakura, at the time, had his mind set on taking the Millennium Puzzle for himself.

After sealing the soul of a P.E. teacher, Mr. Karita (who earlier had bullied Bakura over his effeminate looks and long hair) into a miniature, Bakura set up the Monster World game. The next day, Yugi and his three friends play Bakura (in the Toei anime Miho Nosaka also comes to Bakura's apartment). Yugi (as Yugi (ユーギ Yugi)) plays as a monster tamer, Jonouchi (as Joey (Joe, ジョ Jō, in the Japanese version)) plays as a warrior, Honda (as Hiroto (ヒロト)) plays as a magic gunman, and Anzu (as Anzu (アンズ)) plays as a magician. In the Toei anime, Miho plays as a gypsy. Their souls were sealed into their respective miniatures through the powers of the Millennium Ring. Dark Yugi (Yami Yugi, Yami no Yugi), being the only soul still occupying a flesh-and-blood body, challenges the Dark Bakura to a game.

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

The host 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 the host Bakura back to life.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist, Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World, and Second series anime (American Anime) - the host Bakura plays only a small part in the main portion of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime in America, for most of the series Yami Bakura is in control. When we do see Bakura he is generally very confused as large portions of his memory are missing due to Yami Bakura's increasing control over him. To see a more in-depth description of the role of Bakura/Yami Bakura in the main Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series see the Yami Bakura profile.

Relationships: Poor boy really isn't around enough to have any (if you know what I mean). He is friends with Yugi and the rest of that group, but he isn't especially close to them because of his situation. He has family, and was evidently close to his sister since he wrote her before she died, but we never see any of them so we don't really know. The only interaction we know he has is with Yami Bakura - and that can hardly be called a relationship. Basically Bakura tries to suppress his dark counterpart (who he thinks is just a voice in his head) and generally gets hurt because of it. In the world of fandom there is some speculation over his relationship with Anzu (Tea Garden in the English), but that is most likely due to the fact that their personalities are similar. There is also some speculation over his relationship with his yami, but considering that he doesn't even realize his yami is a separate entity it is not likely that this was meant to be implied in the anime or manga.

Cards: Bakura (though he generally only duels as Yami Bakura) uses two decks, and Occult deck, and an Unlock Dead deck. For the initial part of the show he uses an Occult Deck, 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, which range from White Magical Hat to Morphing Jar. His favorite card is Change of Heart, a Magic Card that has the ability to take control of one of his opponent's monster for one turn.

During the Battle City arc, he uses a new deck constructed by Yami Bakura, focusing on the darker side of the occult by making extensive use of Zombies (Undead) and Fiends (Demons). The signature card of this deck is Dark Necrofear , a powerful monster that can only be Special Summoned by removing three Fiend Sub-Type monsters from his Graveyard. During his duel with Dark Yugi, he shows Dark Necrofear's true power once it is destroyed, bringing forth Dark Sanctuary. Dark Sanctuary enables him to cancel one attack from his opponent's side of the field and gain Life Points equal to half that monster's attack points and deal the same amount of Life Points as damage to his opponents. Furthermore, with Dark Sanctuary, he can use his Monster card zones for his Magic and Trap cards, from which he plays Destiny Board (Ouija Board in the original Japanese version of the franchise). Destiny Board writes out a letter of the word "Final" ("Death" in the Japanese version) every turn, using Magic and Trap zones for each of the letters. When the entire word is spelled out, he will automatically be victorious. With Dark Sanctuary's ability to allow Bakura to play Magic and Trap cards without restricting Destiny Board (as Destiny Board ultimately requires five Magic or Trap zones in order to fully function) and also halt his opponent's attacks, he has a huge advantage. Bakura appears to have his duel clinched against Dark Yugi until he feels the power of Yugi's Slifer the Sky Dragon.

He plays largely the same 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 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 Ghost Shield. He also uses various tablet cards that may be meant to symbolize the original Duel Monster spirits that were captured in stone. When he summons Diabound Kernel, it reduces the attack points of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes and manages to absorb its power via defeating it. Bakura withdraws after getting what he wanted and also since Kaiba appeared to have turned the duel in his favor.

In his final duel of the series, Bakura plays an Undead Lock deck against Yugi Moto, which focuses upon winning the duel by having one's opponent running out of cards. He eventually uses cards that summons his entire Graveyard onto the field, and furthermore another card that forces Yugi to discard cards from his deck equal to the number of monsters on his side of the field. He furthermore uses cards to seal Yugi's most powerful monsters, including Yugi's Silent Swordsman.

Trivia: Bakura's favorite card is the Change of Heart ,ironic because it is much like himself and his Yami.

Bakura's favorite food is cream puffs (is that technically a food?) and his least favorite is raw oysters.

In the Japanese version of the show and manga Bakura Ryo is the only character who does not swear.

Why we love him: Honestly? How could we not? He's the sweetest, most adorable thing ever. He's quiet, studious, kind, smiles a lot, and he's adorably clueless much of the time thanks to his conniving, body stealing, yami. He's super polite, and genuinely kind. He puts himself at risk for the good of others. But the clincher is that face. The hair and those eyes, and that smile... it could melt the coldest heart.

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...Pixel Fetish

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Bakura