Many people perceive Yu-Gi-Oh! as a trading card game or a cartoon promoting it, but it's much more. The original Japanese series, never translated into English due to its uniqueness for a Western audience.
The protagonist was a shy good boy who liked to play board games and was often the victim of school bullying. One of his games is an ancient puzzle. Its case says that whoever manages to solve the puzzle will grant him a wish. His wish was to succeed in acquiring real friends. When he succeeds and solves the puzzle, he comes into contact with another spirit who, whenever the protagonist or one of his friends is in trouble, appears and challenges the abuser to a dark game whose rules he invents at that time, but which are inviolable. If someone attempts to violate them, they simply lose the game. Additionally, if he loses the game even while following the rules, he is punished in a way that is related to his character. The name of the protagonist is of course yugi.
A significant element is his main rival, none other than Bakura, who, when he obtained his own Egyptian heirloom, made a corresponding wish: to have friends that he can play with forever. The problem is that the corresponding spirit perceives the wish in a somewhat sadistic way. It essentially invites whomever Bakura wants to befriend to his house to play a game strongly resembling D&D. However, during the game, the souls of Bakura's teammates get trapped, allowing Bakura to play with them forever, but certainly not in the way he intended.
he original anime of the well-known YU-GI-OH series is completely different, a darker kind of anime that would probably have a PG-13 rating. But exactly that is what makes it even better to watch now because it's more for adults yet still retains the aura of the anime that a lot of people grew up with.
