Though most know Yu-Gi-Oh! for the popular anime and card game which is mostly marketed toward younger audiences, the source material was far from kid friendly. In the original manga, Yugi was a straight-up villain after he became possessed by the spirit of Pharaoh Atem and periodically became Dark Yugi thereafter. While Yu-Gi-Oh and Duel Monsters have become synonymous in the public eye since the manga and anime series first gained major traction around the world, Yugi and Pharaoh started the series off playing a much darker game with Duel Monsters not even being introduced until chapter sixty of the manga series.
Chapters one through sixty of Yu-Gi-Oh! by Kazuki Takahashi running in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine detail the twisted Clive Barker-esque horrors of the Shadow Game. While initially geared towards children upon the manga’s release, Yu-Gi-Oh! was much more of a horror manga than the kid-friendly adventure it evolved into. The first chapter details how Pharaoh Atem possessed Yugi after the protagonist solved the Millenium Puzzle given to him by his deceptive grandfather. After the bonding process was complete, Dark Yugi was born, delivering cruel justice on those that wronged him or his friends.
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The first punishment of note delivered by the Pharaoh’s wrath came in chapter three when a bully named Sozoji starts pressuring kids at school to come to his all-night karaoke shows with the threat of physical violence if they refuse. When Sozoji crosses paths with Yugi, the bully is challenged to a Shadow Game, one which requires the antithesis of what Sozoji forces weaker children to endure. The game is simple, Yugi and Sozoji sit in a room, and the first one to make a sound loses. Due to the stress of the situation, Sozoji’s heart rate increases and makes enough noise to earn him a loss with dire consequences. The cruel consequences of the Shadow Game are put on full display, and Sozoji is driven mad by the ever amplifying sound of his own heartbeat as penance for his previous meanness.
Another victim of Yugi’s cruel and arguably unjust justice is a character with whom fans of both the manga and anime are familiar. Seto Kaiba, who in the anime is introduced as a pretentious millionaire and owner of the coveted and widely known Blue Eyes White Dragon card, is introduced in the manga similarly but with a twist. Kaiba stole Blue Eyes White Dragon from Yugi and his grandfather, so Dark Yugi challenges Kaiba to a game, not of Duel Monsters like in the anime, but in the much more sinister Shadow Game. Kaiba loses the Shadow Game and his soul becomes trapped in a Duel Monsters card to be devoured by the creatures depicted on the card for all time.
Once Duel Monsters becomes the primary focal point of the manga series, the books become less dark and more in line with the anime which adapted the monster-centric card game and abandoned the horrifying Shadow Game. During the series’ horror-manga phase for roughly the first sixty chapters, Yugi proves he is basically evil, even killing some passing villains of the week apart from the traumatic torture previously mentioned. While Yugi became known as the prime example of an anime protagonist, he was a straight up villain in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga.
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