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Yu-Gi-Oh (1999)

every explanation yugioh has ever provided for Shadi’s Whole Deal: a compilation

Early manga: Shadi is a mortal human man. He’s alive. He rides airplanes. His family has guarded the tombs of pharaohs for generations. He’s motivated by things like petty revenge, intellectual curiosity, and a desire to protect Egyptian artifacts.

First half of Memory World: Shadi is a member of the Tombkeeper Clan. His side of the family got into a fight with the Ishtar side, and they each took some of the Millennium Items in the divorce. He’s motivated by the same duty the Ishtars were raised with: to help the Nameless Pharaoh regain his memories. Every fucked up thing he’s done (giving Pegasus the eye, lying to Malik, trying to kill Yugi’s friends, etc) was presumably part of a game of memory-restoring 4D chess.

Second half of Memory World: Shadi was never human. He’s a shapeshifting supernatural being that serves as Zorc’s equal-and-opposite counterpart. He’s also maybe the human incarnation of that tablet with the Millennium Item-shaped indents in it? Bobasa and Hasan were both him, shapeshifted. His motivation is to stop Zorc. Everything he’s done was presumably part of a game of anti-Zorc 4D chess.

DM anime: Shadi is a ghost. We mostly know this because of an anime-added scene where he saves Honda and Otogi from falling and then vanishes, and they’re like “was that a…g-g-ghost?” We don’t know when he died, or who he used to be. He isn’t Bobasa, the anti-Zorc, or Hasan (but he does briefly pilot Hasan’s Memory World RPG avatar, mostly as a convoluted way for the anime to adapt his death scene. Yes, he dies despite being a ghost). We never really get a motivation for why he did anything.

Capsule Monsters: Shadi has been a ghost for thousands of years. He’s been fucking with people the whole time (including Alexander the Great). Motivation: the lulz?

DSOD: Shadi used to be a mortal human man, up to about 5 or 6 years before the start of the series. He somehow got on his hands on the Secret Eighth Millennium Item. He trained a bunch of children to use it to make a utopia dimension. Then Zorkura killed him. After that, he was a ghost. His motivation was…4D chess for the utopia dimension? Which didn’t actually work?

yugiohmangavsanime

It’s implied as early as Battle City in the manga that Bakura killed Shadi.

#shadi really is one of those characters that just exists for the vibes #<- prev tags #meta #literally tho like. what was his deal? whatever he wanted it to be baybee #trying to thread together this bitch's deal has been a lifelong pepe silvia board moment and we will never succeed

distortedplatinum

yusei fudo by me in the big 2026? yes.

zerounitrgb

🏳️‍⚧️ Trans Ally Seto Kaiba 🏳️‍⚧️

crisantoflowerking

lysimachias

In my mind palace this is 100% their post-canon friendship

For @seekerbr who requested Anzu or Kaiba, but...I couldn't decide, so you get both (◌˘◡˘◌)

#fave #you are GOING to eat the taiyaki Kaiba

queergioh-blog

yugioh au — anzu as the protagonist and mai as her rival

animefungi

oh shit i can get on this au wowee zowee

entamewitchlulu

^ can this happen? Like right now?

heartsaidnoibat

What if in this AU, Anzu duels Cecilia in Duelist Kingdom because Pegasus is the one who died? What if Ishizu is the one who turned evil instead of Marik and she has a Yami and is the one Anzu must duel in Battle City? Would there even be a Duelist Kingdom and Battle City? Would Anzu be possessed by Yami Yugi instead of Yugi, and if so, would she crossdress when he took over?

entamewitchlulu

Wait, wait, see, it could be that Mana was the pharaoh so Anzu is possessed by her instead. And also Shizuka is a total gang punk but Jonouchi is a sweet little thing that is losing his eyesight.

heartsaidnoibat

That’s brilliant. I always saw Mana and Anzu as sort of similar, so that really does make sense. And there were female pharaohs, like Hatsheput and Cleopatra, so it’s not historically inaccurate, either. And Atem was Mana’s cute childhood magician friend. <3 I love the idea of Shizuka as a sukeban, too. I can see her in a rebelliously modified sailor fuku uniform, sort of like Uo from Fruits Basket.

As for Bakura’s stand-in, maybe Amane is alive instead of Ryou? And/or Yami Bakura's stand-in is a corrupted, vengeful-spirit version of Kisara that blames Pharoah Mana for her untimely death?

kujakumai

"I am putting a piece of myself into this" or more explicitly putting a piece of your soul into something is an action characters in YGO do constantly (Yami Bakura parasite-mind'ing a piece of the puzzle, Zork putting part of his soul in the ring, TKB putting part of himself in the eye, Marik's ability to see and live through his minions), mainly with the powers of the millennium items, but it's also something shown to be done regularly by even ordinary people just by caring about something a lot (White Mage Bakura, every time Atem or Yugi says he can feel someone's heart or soul in their cards, the BEWD card's refusals to be used against its master). In no case does this ever have negative metaphysical consequences for the person doing it, even when someone does it a lot, and human souls are consistently portrayed as infinitely divisible, with each individual piece indistinguishable from the whole person.

so basically kazuki takahashi says every time you love something or work hard at it then your whole self shines through it and every single time you do this it only makes you more powerful. and i think that's really nice :)