#yami was the fandom nickname for him because figuring out his name is the point of the final arc

[rakkiankh]

The extent of my Yugiouh knowledge is watching a couple abridged episodes, watching Little Kuriboh's Lady Gaga song parodies, and making a pair of OCs (it was a chick who finds Yugi absolutely obnoxious plus her millennium item friend who was in love with... uh... Yami? Atem?... With Yugi but tall). So sitting here scrolling through your posts is just like "I am fascinated and I know so little." Is fun

Yugioh is a goddamn train wreck.

The first seven volumes of the manga got censored and rewritten into an anime by Toei, that hasn't been acknowledged in over 20 years outside of copyright takedowns.

By the 8th volume, Kazuki Takahashi had struck gold with a one off game called Duel Monsters that he then pivoted the entire series from a villain of the week formula to one where people fight to the death with pieces of paper in fights that can last for half a volume. This got made into a completely separate anime by Studio Gallop that retconned literally everything that happened in the previous anime/first 7 volumes.

Then came 4kids. Not only did they change so many things from the original studio Gallop version that they've been the butt of internet jokes for years but they actually paid studio Gallop to make more filler of the show. At least 2 seasons of content not seen anywhere else in canon was funded by 4kids into this series, and most of it contradicts things that happen in the same show.

Did you know Alexander the Great was a yugioh character? He wielded ancient egyptian magic, and split into a good side and bad side after he died in an egyptian pyramid that was in the middle of India for no reason? Because thanks to 4kids, thousands of dollars were spent to animate that very thing and even though it's technically a spin off series several streaming services have just stuck it in the middle of the actual show.

The final arc of the manga was tragically rushed because the Takahashi was hospitalized during the previous arc and was terrified with the idea that he could die before finishing the series.

This resulted in many unfortunate decisions like making the plot make no sense, almost completely forgetting to do the one thing that was foreshadowed early in the series to the point it got tacked on after the big bad was killed despite it making no sense, and probably most tragically, giving the main antagonist a massive dragon dick for no fucking reason. Makes it really hard to take him seriously.

Studio Gallop tried to fix this broken mess, and while they improved a couple things they also managed to make it worse. They also kept the dragon dick which makes literally every attempt 4kids made to censor it really fucking funny so maybe it isn't that bad.

Now why did I feel the need to respond to your ask with such a long, detailed explanation of this series, anon? Because unfortunately, even with my knowledge of the series I barely know what's going on either. There are at least 3 different canons going on at once and they don't usually line up with each other.

Yugioh is very much a train wreck. It's both amazing to witness, batshit insane and really fucking bad at points, and once you look at it you can't look away.

With that said I do recommend it if you're willing to go through all that, the characters are great and you don't even need to understand the card game to enjoy it cuz I sure as he'll don't.