Yu gi oh dark side of dimensions

The stakes have never been higher; the rivalries never as fierce; the risks never so great. One wrong move, one card short, and it's game over for good. A decade in the making, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions features new designs and an all-new story from the original creator of the global phenomenon, Kazuki Takahashi. His masterful tale features anime's most beloved characters in their long-awaited return: Yugi Muto, Seto Kaiba, and their faithful friends Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor Téa Gardner, and Bakura. It's the most highly anticipated re-YU-nion ever!

Five years ago, the U.S. version Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions premiered in theaters. This wasn't the first Yu-Gi-Oh! movie to hit theaters: 4Kids Entertainment produced its own feature-length film Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light (which outright referenced death in a surprising turn for 4Kids) and to celebrate the 10th anniversary a dubbed version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time was released in theaters. The Dark Side of Dimensions stands out from its predecessors in that it features a new story from the franchise's late creator Kazuki Takahashi; Takahashi also provided new character designs and even drew the keyframes for a certain sequence. But he had a bigger picture in mind - namely, using the film as a vehicle to bring closure to the original Yu-Gi-OH! saga.

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Like most of the stories in the original Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Dark Side of Dimensions boils down to a confrontation between Yugi Muto (Dan Green) and his dueling rival Seto Kaiba (Eric Stuart). But what separates this from their previous encounters is the reason the two became rivals in the first place - the Pharaoh Atem, whose spirit possessed Yugi when he completed the Millennium Puzzle. Together, Atem and Yami faced off against numerous threats while also becoming the "King of Games". But in order to pass on to the afterlife, Atem had to participate in a ceremonial duel with Yugi - which Yugi won, bidding his friend a tearful farewell.

Image via Toei Company

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But even though Atem found peace in the afterlife, Kaiba's desire to defeat his rival still lingered - eventually growing into an obsession. He runs constant holographic simulations, attempting to perfect his deck so that he can defeat Atem. And even that isn't enough to satisfy him, as he travels to Atem's burial site to find the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle so that he can reconstruct it and bring Atem back to life. "My scars of defeat run deep, Pharaoh...scars you inflicted upon me," Kaiba says during one of his holographic duels. Given the zeal in which he works to resurrect his rival, it's quite clear that he never recovered from said wounds.

Yugi, on the other hand, has finally come to terms with the Pharaoh's passing. He and his friends are set to graduate from high school, and Yugi has a clear idea for his future: he wants to make his own games, and one day invite his friends to play those games. With this story choice, Takahashi pays homage to the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, where Yugi (and by extension, Atem) would play various games in order to pass judgment on evildoers. The popularity of the Duel Monsters concept led Takahashi to make it the main focus of the manga, as well as the original Yu-Gi-Oh anime and its various spinoffs. By having Yugi turn his focus to other games, he was attempting to signal that the original era of Yu-Gi-Oh! was nearing its end.

Even Yugi's friends are moving on to different stages of their lives. Joey Wheeler (Wayne Grayson) intends to become a duelist on the pro circuit, while Tea Gardner (Amy Birnbaum) wants to travel to New York City to pursue her dream of becoming a ballet dancer. And at the end of the film, they finally graduate and bid each other farewell. This ending is bittersweet, given everything Yugi and his friends have been through. But it's true to life: sometimes friends go separate ways and want to do different things with their lives. It doesn't mean that the bonds they form are any less stronger.

Before their happy ending, Yugi and friends have to contend with the menace of Aigami (Daniel J. Edwards). A seemingly normal student in their class, Aigami is hiding a secret: he is secretly a being named Diva with a connection to the mysterious power known as the Plana, which lets him bend reality to his will. Aigami and the other Plana users gained their power after Atem departed for the afterlife, and will lose it if he returns. Aigami has decided to use his power to "punish the guilty" and send them to a dimension where they'll slowly perish. Over the course of the movie, it's shown that Aigami wants to get revenge on Yugi's friend Ryo Bakura (Ted Lewis): prior to the events of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime Ryo's father had attempted to take the Millenium Ring from Aigami's teacher Shadi Shin. However, the ring possessed a young Ryo with a malevolent spirit and forced him to kill Shadi.

Even though Atem had previously defeated the spirit of the Ring, Aigami is consumed with vengeance and bestows the same fate on Ryo as his other victims - and ends up doing the same to Joey. He also confronts Kaiba and duels him, stealing pieces of the Millenium Puzzle so that Kaiba can't complete it. In the same way that Kaiba is consumed by his desire to defeat Atem, Aigami's quest for vengeace ends up hurting innocent people. And it only gets worse when he finds the Millenium Ring - its residual evil ends up taking a toll on him, and he ignores the pleas of his sister Sera (Laurie Hymes) to set aside his vendetta.

Everything comes to a close in the final act, as Yugi duels Aigami and then Kaiba. Yugi impresses upon both of his opponents that their respective quests will only wind up consuming them. He tells Aigami that he's lost sight of the nobility of Shadi's quest, and finally completes the Millenium Puzzle to show Kaiba that Atem is gone. "It wasn't easy, but I had to let him go. And you do too," Yugi says after completing the Puzzle. And although Atem briefly returns from the afterlife to stop a monstorous version of Aigami that's been corrupted by the Ring's malevolence, he bids Yugi a silent farewell - observing how much his former host has grown. Even Kaiba finds some measure of closure, as he builds a machine that transports him to the afterlife where Atem resides. Even though The Dark Side of Dimensions puts a cap on the original Yu-Gi-Oh!, its legacy - and Takahashi's - will continue to live on.

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