Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yugi Moto:
Yugi is the main character of our story. Yugi is pretty much of a loser in his class, when first introduced he keeps to himself quite a bit, wasting away his time playing games and solving puzzles. Yugi isn't really such a bad guy he just has this problem that he can't help trying to be the best of friends with everyone he comes across no matter how bad they are or how much they want to kick Yugi's butt. This makes him a frequent target to a countless number of bullies, hustlers, pranksters, thieves, and just all around mean guys. Well one day Yugi's grandfather, Sugoroku, gives him a present, it's a strange 3-D pyramid shaped puzzle called "The Millenium Puzzle" it's supposedly an ancient artifact from Egypt that gives special powers to whomever wears it, Sugoroku gives the puzzle to Yugi hoping that it can in some way give Yugi the serious confidence boost that he needs. It seems however that the puzzle works almost too well. Upon Yugi's putting it together the pyramid transforms him into a much different, more confident and evil-looking version of himself called Yugi-oh, the "king of games." Yugioh has some traits that remind me of Freddy Krueger and has a much more twisted and sadistic take on life and doesn't hesitate in the least to deal out a heavy amount of retribution on whomever has been making life hard for his alter-ego. This retribution is usually in the form of some type of game that Yugioh somehow convinces the bad guy to play with him sometimes through hypnosis induced halucinations but usually just by outright talking trash to them. The games seem simple enough but they always have some sort of sadistic twist to them that usually result in the badguy's death or loss of sanity at least if they should fail, but don't be fooled even if they do win Yugioh is a bit of a cheater and usually deals out some form of punishment anyway. Very few people have actually crossed Yugioh and retained their sanity...or their lives.....
Jounouchi (Joey Wheeler):
Jo is probably in my opinion the coolest character next to Yugioh. Jo is basically your all around tough-guy gangster type...he actually is quite strong..in the anime he once beat up an entire gang single handedly. Despite his delinquent like tendencies, Jo is really not such a bad guy. When first introduced he is one of the many bullies who spends his free time picking on Yugi. In fact were it not for Jo there would be no Yugioh because Jo actually stole a piece of the Millenium puzzle from Yugi and threw it into a pool. It was only after Yugi tried to prevent another bully from beating up Jo and Honda (and got the crap knocked out of him for his trouble) that Jo decides that maybe Yugi isn't so bad and retrieves the last piece of the puzzle for him, since that time Jo, Yugi, and Honda have been good friends. Jo's rebelious attitude towards things add just the right touch of nonconformity to the group, and has gotten them out of hard scrapes more than one time (see the manga summeries to see what I mean) and it doesn't hurt that he's apparently a great fighter as well. Overall Jo is essentially a good guy it's just that sometimes his tendency to solve his problems with his fists (or feet as the case may be) sometimes lands him and little bit over his head in trouble.
Honda (Tristan):
Honda is a little bit of a tough-guy like Jonouchi , although he's not as good of a fighter as Jo, the only exception is that instead of the life of a deliquent Honda has chosen the life of a model student. Honda's the type of all around guy that everyone has seen or remebers from high school, you know the kind of guy who does a little bit of everything. In addition Honda's a hopeless romantic who devotes a great deal of his time (more so in the anime than the manga) trying to win the affections of a girl named Miho who as you may have guessed fails to acknowledge Honda's existance. Despite his hopeless romanticism Honda is still a very cool character, he's always standing up for his friends especially Jonouchi whom he seems to have a long history with. Honda's the level-headed one of
the group he's kind of right in between Jo and Yugi he doesn't charge into things like Jo and at the same time he doesn't worry so much as Yugi. Rather Honda takes a more calm analytical approach to every situation.
Anzu (Tea Gardener):
Anzu would be our leading lady in the YuGiOh cast. Anzu is always by the side of her friends when they need her emotionally (she's never seen one of Jo and Honda's little gang fights before) .Very cute and charming she also happens to be Yugi's dream girl however, yes you probably guessed it again, Anzu only considers Yugi as a friend more in the little brother who needs protection kind of context. However Yugi likes her anyway and would probably die a very happy young man if he could even see Anzu remotely naked even once! However in a little twist Anzu is infatuated with Yugi's more confident alter ego Yugioh who has managed to save her from certain doom on more than one occassion. . I know it may sound confusing but rember that Yugi's friends don't learn of his ability to transform for sometime later in the series, something always happens (someone get's knocked out, blind-folded, ect.) that prevents them from seeing him transform for some time. This makes for a pretty twisted love (triangle?) within Yugioh. Yugi likes Anzu, Anzu likes Yugioh, and Yugioh couldn't care less about anyone else.
Sugoroku:
Sugoroku is Yugi's grandfather, he's not much of a leading character at all, suffice it to say that he owns a game shop, that him and Yugi live in, that imports and sells games from all over the world and is usually the source of whatever new game is introduced into Yugioh. "Come look at this new game I got from America" or whatever.
Seto Kaiba:
Every good story needs a great villian. Who would Peter-Pan be without Captain Hook? Superman without Lex Luther? Kaiba Seto (Kaiba's his last name, Japanese names are given in military fashion) adds just the type of villianous I won't quite type of presence to Yugioh. Seto is basically a sadistic little rich kid who much like Yugi wittles away his time playing games, especially one card game called "Magic & Wizards" that seems to be a mixture of Pokemon and Magic the Gathering.He's even got his own indoor themepark (KaibaLand). Seto was once an orphan but his little brother and him were taken in by this wealthy businessman who in actuallity was somewhat abusive to Seto. One day Seto decides he's had enough and manages to get the board of directors of his dad's company to vote him as head of the company in his dad's place. Seto gets the company and his dad is so emotionally distraught that he hurls himself out of the boardroom window. Seto's entire life seems to revolve around "Magic & Wizards" and he's obsessed with finding one special card called the Blue Ice White Dragon which is the strongest single card in the entire game. When Seto discovers that Sugoroku has one he offers his entire collection in exchange for that one card, Sugoroku refuses and Seto ends up having to steal the card from Yugi. Needless to say the Yugioh personality emerges later that same day and challenges Seto to a "Magic & Wizards" match, only Yugioh's version is called the "Yami no Gemu" Game of Darkness, and what makes it so dark is that to Seto's suprise the monsters on the cards literaly climb out of them and battle each other (pretty cool huh?). Seto does eventually lose to Yugi and his consciousness is imprisioned on a game card by Yugi. After Seto somehow recovers he becomes obessessed with defeating Yugi one day and thus a bitter rivalry is born!
Sadi:
Sadi is probably the most enigmatic character of the story. He comes from Egypt and is supposedly some sort of Egyptian soothsayer as it would seem. Like Yugi, Sadi also has an artifact from Egypt that gives him powers as well except his looks like an ancient weight scale, it is later revealed that there are seven artifacts in all, each with it's own special power and Sadi is out to collect all of them. We first encounter him when he comes to town to see an ancient Egypt exhibit at the local museum which Yugi's millenium pendent is a part of because he let the museum currators borrow it for the exhibit. Sadi wastes no time in dealing out punishment to the two men who have robbed his land of the artifacts in the form of what he calls a game but is pretty much a no-win situation. It's simple Sadi takes a feather and puts it at one end of the scale, the other end is empty but it contains your heart (metaphorically not literaly) and basically if your heart is lighter than the feather you live, if not well...guess. This bears much similarity to the Ancient Egyptian myth of Osirus, for those of you who don't know Osirus was like the Egyptian guardian to the gates of heaven, when you died he would come and weigh your heart against a feather if it was lighter than the feather you could pass onward into the afterlife and become a star, if it was too heavy your spirit was doomed to walk the earth, supposedly one's heart became too heavy from the burden carried by a life of evil deeds and/or wastefull living. Sadi later encounters Yugi and uses the power his artifact gives him to probe Yugi's soul but when he get's there he finds only Yugioh waiting for him. Yugioh challenges Sadi to a game and makes Sadi run a strange 4-dimensional maze full of doors with traps behind them. Sadi fails but Yugioh desides to show him mercy and Sadi lets Yugi keep the millenium pendent. At least for now.
Mokuba Kaiba:
Mokuba is Seto's younger not so evil brother. Mokuba's game of choice is a chess-like game called "Cap Monsters". Mokuba challenges Yugi to a game of Cap Monster to sort of avenge his brother's defeat but despite all of his obvious cheating Yugioh manages to defeat him and gives Sema the hallucination that he is imprisioned in a giant bubble cap (you know the kind that come out of those little toy dispensers at K-Mart). After Mokuba also recovers he too becomes obsessed with defeating Yugi but not to such an extreme degree as his brother.
Bakura Ryou:
Ryou is a new transfer student to Yugi's school. He seems like a nice enough guy he's friendly, and the girls really love him! The only problem is that Ryou is also the subject to bullying but not even half as much as Yugi. But what's this? Ryou has an artifact too! Ryou has a pendant much similiar to Yugi's, except the pyramid is right side up instead up upsidedown, that gives him the power to turn people into game pieces for Ryou' s favorite game a RPG style boardgame called "Monster World" (yes practically every game in Yu-Gi-Oh is called monster something or other). However Ryou is not able to control his pendant like Yugi is and it sometimes his much more evil persona emerges without Ryou's permission, unlike Yugi's, Ryou's pendent has an almost hypnotic control over him that makes you wonder who's really in charge...Ryou.....or his pendent.
borrowed from Sodina's Ultimate Anime Garden
