I'd wtached the (English) anime before ever looking at the source materiel for my favorite anime, the manga. I actually started with Yu-Gi-Oh Volume 7 and have manged to collect all 7 volumes of the first story arc. (This arc is followed by the Yu-Gi-Oh: Duelist arc and the Yu-Gi-Oh: Millenium World arc)

I very quicly realized while watching the orginal anime and manga that Yu-Gi-Oh was aimed at teens. (The rated for the manga is teen and the orginal anime TV-14. How it came to be a drak TV-7 show in the U.S. is beyond me.)

Still, the story was much more meaningful, and I was used to the dark tone by reading books like the Hunger Games and Divergent years before redaing this. Each character has their own backstory, dreams, and traits. Though the only girl in the main characters' (Yugi Mutou and Dark Yugi) gang Tea can be used as a damsel in distress. (Though one of the toughest memeber, Joey, who used to be in a gang was also placed in this roll in Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist: Volume 15)

What really caught my attention was a few pages in the second to last chapter in volume 6. These pages show the realtionship between the evil villina Yami or Drak Bakura and his innocent host Ryou Bakura. He takes to Ryo in his haed, making Ryou think he is going insane. This forces the edges of his ring into his chest so Ryo cannot take off the ring. To me this is Ryo's lose of innocence and freedom.

A very deep book. 5/5 stars.