I always enjoyed Bakura duels in the anime. It was always fun to see him usually trying some niche strategy instead of just "Big monster attacks for big damage"

14:05 Kuriboh nervously holding the book like he has a report due in the morning is precious.

In the manga, Destiny Board and Dark Necrofear work quite differently, Dark Necrofear actually requires the monsters for its summon to be in Attack position and to be destroyed over the past 5 turns in order for them to be used for Dark Necrofear's summon. Dark Necrofear also was responsible for the Ghost of Dark Sanctuary effect as well, the field spell wasn't even played.

Destiny Board also required Dark Necrofear to be destroyed in order to activate, however it didn't place the Spirit Message cards, it just worked kinda like how counters would, spelling out D-E-A-T-H. That's where the field spell came in. It was an addition into the anime that that gave room for the Spirit Messages to be placed on the field while also explaining Dark Necrofear's effect.

That's a part of why Bakura seemed to make these weird plays in the anime, the writers essentially took the manga duel then just edited it a little, with some plot armor to cover it up. Several Battle City duels were changed as well, look at Marik vs. Bakura for another good example

This duel is one of the one of the ones where it was better explained in the manga. For reference the important aspects come from Yugioh duelist starting with ch 144
1.) Dark Necrofears summoning condition was absurd. Bakura's fiends were required to be destroyed while in Atk mode within 5 turns, its not that he didn't put them in defense he couldn't.
2.) Destiny Board needed Dark Necrofear in the grave in order to move the Ouja board pieces, at one point Yugi revives Dark Necrofear (similar to the anime) and doing so prevents Ouja board from working.
3.) Fiend Sanctuary was not a card, it was just an effect of Dark Necrofear. Sacrificing a monster per turn, using monster zones for spell trap cards, all of that was anime only. For that matter the spirit letters weren't separate cards they seemed to be attached to the original destiny board like counters.
4.) Yugi didn't have fiends exile in the manga, he used a different convoluted combo to break Bakura's strategy.

Yugi and Bakura (mostly Yugi) did make misplays in the duel, but it was a more cohesive duel in the original. I believe the reason they changed it so much was because one of Bakura's cards "deja vu" was needlessly complex but then they turned around and made fiends sanctuary anyway.

The other duel that the manga significantly changed was Yugi vs Seto round 3 (their third duel in the manga, 2nd in the anime). Seto had Negate attack during mostly the entire duel and could have negated Celtic Guardians attack at the end even if Yugi didn't stop. He was presumably testing Yugi's resolve as he by all means won that duel. I would love for you to go over that manga duel as it had "Expert rules" a deviation of the standard rules of duelist kingdom and made for an interesting game. It's duelist ch 41 if interested.

I'd like to see a Duel Analysis of whether Jesse would've beaten Jaden in the Season 3 premiere.

For what it’s worth, the majority of misplaying in this Duel is a result of the anime playing fast and loose with card effects. In the manga, Dark Necrofear needed the Fiends to have been in Attack Mode when they were destroyed and Destiny Board couldn’t be activated until Necrofear was in the Graveyard so Bakura couldn’t have used it earlier. 🤔

I love how Yami Bakura treats the Gods in this arc considering that's he's revealed to be the spirit of Zorc in the final season. Marik laughs that Yami Bakura would try to affect Slifer with a spell card here and sacrifices Ra in his duel with Yami Marik since it has no attack points, but since Zorc is stronger than the Gods as shown in the final season, it makes sense that Yami Bakura wouldn't think that the Gods were anything special.

5:05 I think it is important to note that last time Yugi played Bakura, he was rocking a Man Eater Bug. Decent reason to be wary of a facedown monster

This was actually a very hard duel in Legacy of The Duelist because Yugi's deck is not designed to deal with backrow.

The worst misplay was not activating the dark door in the first or second turn. It would've greatly reduced the damage taken by bakura

4:57
It happened in one of their other duels, Morphing Jar was played by Bakura.

I wonder if Bakura was trying to work around Yugi’s melenium item and it’s ability. Since Yugi is in a good position at the start of the duel he won’t be able to draw op cards at the start.

This has to be one of the more back and forth plot armor duels of the franchise.

Still one of my favourites from the original series. Alternative win conditions are so fun.

On Bakura’s 3rd turn, he could have crashed in his 3rd fiend monster into Yugi’s, taken minimal damage, summoned dark necrofear AND set destiny board 1 turn early.

So much wrong here, and yet, still enjoyable

One thing I didn't realise until recently is just how huge the cards are in the anime

It is a good point though, Bakura never actually made this a Shadow Duel. The field spell made it seem that way but it was still just a normal duel

yami bakura duels have always been my favorite. Because his duels he throws out self preservation and goes straight into messing with you psychologically. You know he has powerplays and it frustrates the audience that he doesn't just commit but dragging it out and instilling fear and doubt into the goody deus ex machina Atem  is delightful. And hes chaotic, helping, assisting,  befriending, betraying, neglecting his host to protecting his host. Plot wise best antagonist. Despite his losing streak everyone was wary whenever the spikey cream puff stepped up to duel.

man watching this duel I never saw Yugi losing I saw Bakura as the underdog who duels incredibley well against an opponent who has a card that is practically invincible and theres no way around it thats why it felt like an amazing duel to me

Actually, if I remember correctly,the anime/manga version of Destiny Board can't be activated unless Necrofear is in the GY.
And Necrofear could only be summoned by banishing fiends that were destroyed in Attack Position in the last 5 turns from the GY.

So ,Destiny Board here was a dead draw until he did all of that, got Necrofear on the field and then into the GY.

With that context, for better and for worse, Bakura's plays here make sense.

That moment in the anime at 17:10 when Yami Bakura just says "fuck this my plans are more important than your silly God Cards" was so awesome, really continued to hype him up as if he was only interested because it happened to line up with his other plans

Dude summoning Slifer animation goes so hard my fav scene in the anime