Dark Yugi
From Janime
Dark Yugi
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|---|---|
| Yu-Gi-Oh! (manga), Yu-Gi-Oh! (Toei series), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! R | |
| Dub Name | Yami Yugi, Yami, Pharaoh |
| First Appearance | Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Vol. 1, Duel 1 |
| Birth Date | Unknown |
| Known Relatives | Akhenamkhanen (father), Aknadin (uncle), Priest Seto (cousin) |
| Height | 153cm. |
| Weight | 42kg. |
| Favourite Food | None |
| Least Favourite Food | None |
| Signature Card | Black Magician |
| Seiyuu | Megumi Ogata (Toei series) Shunsuke Kazama (NAS series) |
| VA | Dan Green |
Dark Yugi (闇の遊戯 or 闇遊戯 [1] Yami no Yūgi) or Yu-Gi-Oh [2] (literally King of Games), is the spirit of the nameless Egyptian pharaoh, who inhabits Yugi Mutou’s Millennium Puzzle throughout the events of the original manga and the two anime adaptations of it. The adventures he embarks on in order to recover his lost memory are the focal point of the story.
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[edit] Personality
In the manga, Dark Yugi starts out as Yugi's righteous, but cruel alter-ego who takes control of his host’s body in stressful situations and often deals sinister punishments to those who seek to harm him or his friends. However, the more he opens up to Yugi, the more he is influenced by Yugi's forgiving nature, making the fierce, vengeful spirit quickly transform into a determined and kind, if slightly cocky, hero.
Dark Yugi’s pride is both his greatest strength and greatest weakness. On several occasions in the manga and the Duel Monsters anime, his fear of losing could have had disastrous consequences, had it not been for Yugi. On the other hand, it is also what gets him through some rough times, forcing him to pursue victory even when the odds are decidedly against him.
Unlike his host, Dark Yugi doesn't often show a world of verbal respect to those who haven't earned it. Jonouchi and Honda are among the select few he addresses with honorifics. While his speech pattern is often riddled with words considered either rude or informal by the Japanese language standards, Dark Yugi is occasionally prone to giving eloquent, and even slightly philosophical speeches. He greatly values honor and determination, and has little patience or sympathy for those who attempt to attain their goals through underhanded means.
Even though seemingly self-sufficient, Dark Yugi heavily relies on support from his friends and puts a great amount of faith in their abilities.
[edit] Appearance
Dark Yugi's appearance has changed considerably throughout the first seven volumes of the manga. In addition to his hair, and particularly bangs, getting progressively sharper and more angular, his facial features have also gotten softer and less maniacal over time. It is hard to tell what were the author's visual clues about Dark Yugi's gradual change of temper, and what was the a result of the somewhat belated finalization of character designs. His eye color on various manga covers shifts from red to purple, occasionally even green, while the Toei and NAS anime adaptations stick to red and purple, respectively.
In the first volume of the manga, Dark Yugi sported two ankh-shaped accessories on each sleeve of his Domino High uniform. Unlike the rest of his outfit, the ankhs were present only when Dark Yugi was in control of Yugi's body. Their significance was never explained and they soon faded into obscurity.
It is a common belief in the fandom that Yugi Mutou's leather clothing items, along with various punk-ish accessories, such as wristbands, chains and rings were actually an influence of Dark Yugi's taste in clothing, but Dark Yugi himself makes contradictory statements in regards to this. Yugi does indeed adopt the style only after releasing Dark Yugi's soul, and the spirit even makes an off-hand suggestion to him to match his Millennium Puzzle chain with a bracelet on one occasion. However, Dark Yugi soon thereafter complains that his host "still doesn't have any taste with these things," after Yugi chooses a particularly flashy outfit for the spirit's date with Anzu, shortly before Battle City.
One fashion statement that seems to be distinctly Dark Yugi's, though, is a tendency to wear his jacket casually draped over his shoulders. The improvised cape is amazingly resistant to wind and gravity alike.
Despite the fact that Yugi's physical features do not change when Dark Yugi is in control of his body, the way Dark Yugi carries himself, along with his distinct facial expressions is apparently enough for his friends, and sometimes even strangers, to be able to tell the two apart visually. This is particularly evident in chapter 20, when Jonouchi, at a mere glance, instantly notices something different about Yugi's face, without even knowing of the spirit's existence yet. Honda later has the same reaction upon his first encounter with Dark Yugi, after Death-T.
Anzu notes that Dark Yugi's voice, too, is different and more confident than Yugi's.
[edit] Biography
[edit] History
Although this fact is not revealed until the Battle City arc, Dark Yugi is the spirit of a teenaged Egyptian pharaoh who had defeated the evil entity Zork at the cost of his own life, 3000 years prior to the events of Yu-Gi-Oh!. His entire existence was wiped from history due to the fact that he used his own name to bind a spell that sealed Zork into the seven Millennium Items, and is thus also the key to breaking the seal and releasing Zork into the world once again. The only record of his short reign is a stone tablet depicting a duel between him and priest Set, which Set himself made to honor his cousin’s memory. In this battle, the pharaoh’s soul was sealed into the Millennium Pyramid under dubious circumstances, and his memory wiped clean. The Pyramid then shattered into pieces, not to be assembled for the following three millennia. A box containing the pieces of the Millennium Item was laid to rest in the Tomb of the Nameless Pharaoh amid numerous deadly traps which, according to legend, could be overcome only by a worthy individual. It was discovered by Sugoroku Mutou, who later passed it on to his grandson Yugi.
The final shape of the puzzle was unknown to Yugi and he spent eight years trying to put it together, believing that the puzzle will grant him one wish upon completion. When he finally succeeded, the pharaoh’s soul was released and, unbeknownst to Yugi, started occasionally possessing his body in times of danger, stress and sometimes, even when Yugi was merely angry at witnessing injustice.
[edit] Early Manga Oneshots
Upon waking up in the modern world with no memories of his own, Dark Yugi did little aside from dealing with bullies and troublemakers by challenging them to various, sometimes downright bizarre, games. His only weapons were the puzzle which allowed him to deal penalties to the loser, and the guts to wager his own life when necessary. The games themselves were typically set up using whatever items Dark Yugi had at his disposal.
The first in the long line of his Penalty Game victims is Ushio, a senior student and hall monitor who tries to extort money from Yugi in exchange for his 'bodyguard services.' After Yugi, Jonouchi and Honda take a brutal beating from Ushio, Dark Yugi challenges him to a Game of Darkness in which the outcome depends on the player's ability to keep his greed in check. Ushio, being a man who values money above all else, promptly loses the game and receives a penalty which makes him hallucinate money in dirt and dry leaves. This pushes Ushio in a state of euphoria, and Dark Yugi leaves him to pick up the imagined bills, stating that, given his greedy nature, the penalty might just be a happy ending for him. The blackly humorous punishment befitting of the crime becomes an established pattern in the way Dark Yugi administers his own brand of justice to those who 'trespass into another's soul,' as he puts it.
The next person to get a judgment from Dark Yugi is a reality TV director who orchestrates petty street crimes in order to film and air them on television. Yugi and Jonouchi fall victim to his quest for ratings, and Dark Yugi challenges him to a dice game where the odds are seemingly in the director's favor. Unsurprisingly, the director loses after his die dubiously brakes in half, and receives a Penalty Game which pixellates his vision by mimicking a mosaic censor.
An extremely ambitious and untalented karaoke signer Sozoji falls in ill favor with Dark Yugi after forcing Yugi's classmate Tomoya Hanasaki to promote his concert, and subsequently beats him for not doing a proper job with it. The game Dark Yugi plays with Sozoji is a game of silence in which the loser is the first person who makes any sort of sound. Yugi wagers his life on the game, and Sozoji is so anxious to beat him that his own heartbeat becomes loud enough to sound the noise indicator. The Penalty Game Dark Yugi deals him amplifies the sound of Sozoji's heartbeat to an unbearable volume.
One of the most brutal penalties Dark Yugi casts is on an escaped prisoner who takes Anzu hostage during her part time employment in Burger World. Prisoner '777' orders Yugi to bring him cigarettes and a bottle of alcohol, and Dark Yugi uses those items, along with a Zippo lighter to set up a game which ends in the prisoner unwittingly setting himself on fire. This is the first time Anzu comes in contact with Dark Yugi, but due to being blindfolded the entire time, she only hears the voice of her rescuer and becomes obsessed with discovering his identity.
The next person to stir trouble in Yugi's surroundings is a self-proclaimed prophet and fellow Domino High student named Kokurano. Kokurano sets his sights on Anzu and uses her infatuation with her unknown Burger World rescuer to lure her into an empty classroom, casting a prediction that a 'wonderful man' would reveal himself to her there, and that she would 'surrender her body and soul' to him. Upon realizing that Kokurano is in the business of making his own predictions come true, Dark Yugi rushes to Anzu's rescue once again. He defeats the false prophet in a game using the same bottle of chloroform Kokurano used to sedate Anzu before Yugi's arrival. It is one of the few times where a supernatural Penalty Game is not cast. Kokurano's punishment is being knocked into deep sleep by the chloroform, with notes of all the false predictions he makes exposed for his fellow students to see.
Later, during a school festival, a group led by Goro Inogashira forces Yugi and his friends out of their designated spot and thwarts their hard work on organizing a carnival game. Goro and his group set up an Okonomiyaki cooking stand, instead. Dark Yugi reacts by challenging Goro to a game of 'Iron Ice-Plate Hockey,' using a block of ice nested with a vial of explosive chemicals for a puck. At first, Dark Yugi has some difficulty keeping up with the strength of his opponent's blows, but he eventually outsmarts Goro and drives the block to explode in his face.
The first lady to experience one of Dark Yugi's Penalty Games is Ms. Chono, a beautiful, vain and bitter Domino High teacher who takes delight in putting her students and potential suitors down. When she finds Honda's love letter to one of his classmates in the form of a disassembled puzzle, she starts putting it together in order to find out the name of the sender and expel him from school. Meanwhile, Dark Yugi switches the mode of the puzzle to Game of Darkness and Ms. Chono receives a Penalty Game upon its completion which peals the excessive makeup from her face and reveals her true ugly nature.
When the shifty owner of the 'Junky Scorpion' shop sells Jonouchi a pair of trendy sneakers, only to have them stolen and brought back to him, Dark Yugi shows up on his doorstep and employs the shop owner's own pet scorpion in a game similar to the one he played with Ushio. Like Ushio, the shop owner gets taken over by his greed and loses the game after the scorpion stings him in self defense.
Shortly afterward, Dark Yugi sticks up for Jonouchi once again, when members of his old gang blackmail him into returning to their fold and then beat him up due to disobedience. Dark Yugi designs an electric trap for them using a puddle of water and a stun gun.
Tomoya Hanasaki falls under Dark Yugi's protection again, after being brutally beaten by three delinquents. Yugi taunts the delinquents into chasing him and uses a bottle of spray paint to draw out a maze pattern on the ground as he runs. He ends the paint trail near a discarded cigarette and the paint ignites, leaving the delinquents trapped in a maze of fire as Dark Yugi laughs and advises them to run for their lives.
Another television persona, this time a game show producer, finds himself in a Game of Darkness when Dark Yugi learns of his plans to trick Jonouchi, who was participating in his rigged show. The game involves a set of ropes and a bucket of paint, and upon his loss, the producer is forced to admit his greedy desires on air.
Dark Yugi's next opponent is Koji Nagumo, an expert in the game of Monster Fighter. Koji beats Yugi in the game and steals his Monster Fighter, but Dark Yugi challenges him to a rematch and achieves a hard victory. As punishment, both for bullying other players and disrespecting the game, Dark Yugi deals Koji a penalty that results in his own Monster Fighter figures holding him down as the dark part of his soul is devoured.
One of the few victims that gets a fatal penalty from Dark Yugi is Hajime Imori. Imori challenges and beats Yugi in a game of Dragon Cards. Before Yugi's soul is sucked into a soul-eating Jar as punishment for the loss, he reaches for the Millennium Puzzle and Dark Yugi emerges, very angered at Imori's treatment of his other self. Imori is beaten in a rematch and his soul replaces Yugi's in the jar, where 25 dragons consume it.
[edit] The Man From Egypt
The first Millennium Item possessor Dark Yugi faces is the mysterious Egyptian Shadi, the man who wields both the Millennium Scales and the Millennium Key. Shadi meets Yugi at a museum and ventures into his soul room upon realizing that he is the one who assembled the Millennium Puzzle. He is taken aback by the fact that the soul room is divided in half and that it contains a rather grouchy host in the form of Dark Yugi. After a quick round of questions, Dark Yugi is informed that Shadi will be taking the Millennium Puzzle with him, if he deems it necessary. He is not thrilled with the idea of parting with the item and challenges Shadi to a Game of Darkness with the objective of finding his true soul room, but the traps set on every step of the way prove to be more than the curious Egyptian can handle. Shadi finds himself at the mercy of Dark Yugi, and is surprised when he is offered a helping hand. Dark Yugi advises him to leave while he still can, realizing that it is likely not the last he will see of Shadi.
As predicted, Shadi returns to test Yugi and ensures his cooperation by taking Anzu hostage and instructing one of his puppets to keep Jonouchi busy. He then challenges Yugi to a Game of Darkness of his own and explains that the objective is to find weakness in the opponent's heart. The integrity of the heart is measured by Ushabiti figurines - their cracking signals that a weakness has been detected. Dark Yugi is furious at Shadi's audacity in taking Anzu hostage and putting her in mortal danger, but he realizes he has no choice but to accept the game and undergoes several tests, from riddles to memory games, with some difficulty. The last test turns out to be the hardest, as it pits Dark Yugi in a dangerous game against an illusion of Jonouchi. Shadi tries to stir Yugi by reminding him of Jonouchi's bullying, but Yugi absolutely refuses to play a potentially fatal game against his friend. Shadi believes that this means Yugi has decided to surrender, but Yugi contradicts him, saying that the faith he has in his friends is a strength and not a weakness. The realization causes the game to collapse and Shadi's figurine to crack, marking him as the loser. Dark Yugi rushes to Anzu's aid, only to realize Jonouchi is already on the case. The two of them rescue her together, and send Shadi off with a few threatening remarks. Despite the stress of the moment, and the fact that they only caught a glimpse of Yugi's face, Jonouchi and Anzu both notice something different about their friend. However, by the time they decide to confront him about it, Dark Yugi has already relinquished control to his host, leaving Jonouchi and Anzu confused and suspicious.
[edit] Seto Kaiba And Death-T
The first duel between Dark Yugi and Seto Kaiba is prompted by Kaiba's theft of Sugoroku's favorite card - the Blue Eyes White Dragon. Despite Kaiba being a seasoned Magic and Wizards enthusiast, Dark Yugi defeats him relying on what he calls the Heart of the Cards. Kaiba is devastated by the loss, and Dark Yugi adds insult to injury by dealing him a Penalty Game that makes him experience death at the hands of his monster cards. Kaiba becomes obsessed with taking revenge on Yugi and his brother Mokuba later follows suit, challenging Yugi to a game of Capsule Monster Chess. Dark Yugi is repulsed by the way Mokuba's cronies try to handle his puzzle. He accepts the challenge even when Mokuba tells him that losing the game will mean losing one of his fingers. But Mokuba is the one who loses, despite possessing stronger pieces, and he is punished by an illusion of being trapped in a giant monster capsule. Dark Yugi later defeats him again in a game involving poisoned food, and with Jonouchi's well-being at stake.
During Death-T, Dark Yugi appears only after Yugi overcomes the fear of his alter-ego's cruelty. He faces and defeats Mokuba in a game of Capsule Monsters once again, but takes pity on him when he realizes Seto has no intention of letting his brother go unpunished for losing. Dark Yugi pulls Mokuba out of the traumatizing simulation box and learns of the cruel life the Kaiba brothers had in the care of their adopted father. He promises Mokuba that he will do his best to rid Seto of the ugly traits years of abuse have instilled in him.
For the second time, Dark Yugi and Kaiba duel, but this time the odds are overwhelmingly against Yugi. At the sight of Kaiba's three Blue Eyes White Dragons, Dark Yugi is all but ready to surrender, but the trust his friends have put in him, along with Sugoroku's mysterious deck, give him the courage to carry on. He draws all five pieces of the legendary Exodia - a feat no one has ever accomplished - and obliterates Kaiba's dragons along with his life points. Kaiba is again left in a state of desperation, and Dark Yugi casts his first and only Penalty Game with a purpose to improve, and not punish the recipient. He calls the penalty Mind Crush and explains to Mokuba that the evil part of his brother's heart has been shattered. The trauma leaves Kaiba in a six-month coma as he takes an inward journey to assemble the pieces of his broken heart.
Upon revealing his existence to Yugi's friends in Death-T and finding himself welcomed with open arms, Dark Yugi occasionally starts taking part in their school activities and helping them out of trouble without employing the powers of his puzzle. On one occasion, he organizes a search for a keychain love compatibility tester called 'Lovely Mate', given to Yugi by Anzu and confiscated and hidden by another bitter teacher. To Anzu's infinite delight, her own keychain not only helps Dark Yugi defeat the teacher, but also beeps in his hands, indicating that the two of them are a good match. Dark Yugi later rescues her from the clutches of a deranged bomber during her date with the normal Yugi, and Anzu uses the opportunity to try and make him spend some time alone with her.
[edit] Monster World
[edit] Toei Series
In Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh series, Dark Yugi has two catchphrases. One, used as an intro to his Games of Darkness, is "It's game time." The other is "The Door of Darkness has opened," and it is usually the last thing his opponent hears before Dark Yugi's Penalty Game takes effect.
The games Dark Yugi sets up are either completely unique to Toei's anime, or modified versions of the manga ones. Examples of modified games include Dragon Block, a variation of Dragon Cards from the manga, and the balloon bomb game from episode 14, which was originally also card-based. By the same token, his Penalty Games are either unique or adapted from the manga with varying faithfulness. For instance, in the adaptation of the manga chapter 004, Prisoner 777 does not actually set himself on fire, but only believes that he did. Similarly, most of Dark Yugi's punishments are not as violent as their manga counterparts and are almost exclusively illusions.
