Summary of Past Plots
This page includes some canon summaries of Yu-Gi-Oh! Zero, DM, and GX, and headcanons of the characters' childhoods and pasts. A canon character from the future created a white hole during the Big Bang approximately 13.8 billion years ago. This white hole released immense energy that became the genderless Light of Destruction from the GX anime. For spoilers on which canon character created the New Light, go here. The Light used to be good, but it eventually became corrupted by greed and jealousy. It traveled through space and caused wars, including World War I and World War II, dictators, and natural disasters when it reached Earth. [GX anime episode 97 from 4:13 to 4:43] It was defeated by Yuuki Juudai in the anime, but it returned as an evolved, stronger form called the New Light in the group. It can travel through time, space, and different dimensions to cause chaos. The New Light's goal is to be the ultimate god of the multiverse and to overpower its creator. The canon Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, anime, and movies of the different series contradict each other, so the group divides these canon plots into different dimensions at Different Dimensions of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Multiverse. The New Light merged several dimensions together before Millennium World, which became the dimension of Yu-Gi-Oh-RPdA. This created one timeline to enable all the group's characters to exist together, including those who are from a manga only, an anime only, or a movie only.
After merging several dimensions into one, the New Light keeps that single dimension indefinitely stuck in the year 1998. This explains why the group's characters remain the same ages without getting older. Whenever it's a new year, it gets recycled back to a new 1998. The countries with the highest Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) and strongest economies in 1998 are listed here. The world leaders include Bill Clinton as the president of the USA in his second term, Hashimoto Ryuutarou and then Obuchi Keizou as the prime ministers of Japan (elections took place in 1998), Helmut Kohl and then Gerhard Schröder as the chancellors of Germany (elections took place in 1998), Jacques Chirac as the president of France, Tony Blair as the prime minister of the United Kingdom, John Paul II as the pope in Vatican City, Jiang Zemin as the general secretary of China, Fernando Henrique Cardoso as the president of Brazil, Jean Chrétien as the prime minister of Canada, K. R. Narayanan as the president of India, John Howard as the prime minister of Australia, Boris Yeltsin as the president of Russia, Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as the king of Saudi Arabia, Hosni Mubarak as the president of Egypt, Sani Abacha and then Abdulsalami Abubakar as the presidents of Nigeria (elections took place in 1998), etc. Other influential people in this year are listed here in a list compiled by the news website, Time. If characters in the group mention celebrities or other famous people who were born in or after 1998, this means the New Light's magic temporarily malfunctioned and caused the characters to gain a little knowledge from other dimensions. For example, let's say Nosaka Miho mentions James Charles, a makeup artist and a model born on May 23, 1999. Normally James never gets born in the Yu-Gi-Oh-RPdA dimension, so Miho should not know about him. However, she could know about him if she accidentally gets some knowledge of him from other dimensions where he does exist. This can happen to characters regardless of whether or not they are part of the Society of New Light. However, members of the Society have even more knowledge of the future, including Duel Monsters cards, summoning methods, and dueling equipment from future eras. Nonmembers do not have knowledge on dueling from future eras.
The reason the New Light chose 1998 is because Atem normally went to the afterlife in that year, but he was prevented from leaving due to the dimensions merging. With that said, technology is still able to advance in the group, which means the characters are not permanently stuck with old fashioned technology from 1998. This was shown in A Dark Side of Dimensions because Anzu had a mobile phone with a touchscreen, and there were Dimension summons. This movie took place in 1999, so it has not happened yet in the group. However, even before this movie, there is already advanced technology such as KaibaCorp's duel disks that produce holographic projections, Yakou brought Keith back to life with the Devil gods in Yu-Gi-Oh! R, etc. This means things progress differently in the group than in real life. The following numbering system is used in the Society of New Light to distinguish each 1998 year:
1998 (1998 in real life)
1998-1 (1999 in real life)
1998-2 (2000 in real life)
1998-3 (2001 in real life)
1998-4 (2002 in real life)
1998-5 (2003 in real life)
1998-6 (2004 in real life)
1998-7 (2005 in real life)
1998-8 (2006 in real life)
1998-9 (2007 in real life)
1998-10 (2008 in real life)
1998-11 (2009 in real life)
1998-12 (2010 in real life)
1998-13 (2011 in real life)
1998-14 (2012 in real life)
1998-15 (2013 in real life)
1998-16 (2014 in real life)
1998-17 (2015 in real life)
And so on...
To determine what a year's equivalent is in the group, take the year minus 1998. Here are examples:
2015 - 1998 = 17, which means it's 1998-17
2598 - 1998 = 600, which means it's 1998-600
Only the New Light and its members in the Society of New Light know about this numbering system. This is because the New Light considers its members to be part of its family. Everyone else just thinks it's 1998 without realizing they are stuck in that year. The reason presidents, monarchs, etc remain the same is because babies cannot grow up to become new leaders. For example, let's say there's an American president named Jane Doe who gets elected in 2052 at age 40, which means she would've been born in 2012. This means she would be part of the babies who were born in 1998-14 (2012 in real life). Since babies cannot grow older in the group due to the New Light's effect, then Jane Doe would never reach adulthood to be elected in 1998-54 (2052 in real life). This is why the same leaders remain indefinitely in the group. Embryos, fetuses, and premature babies can grow into full term babies, but then they stop growing because of the New Light's effect. There are places in the world with few or zero humans. For example, Australia and the USA are very similar sizes. Australia is just slightly smaller than the USA's contiguous 48 states (not counting Alaska and Hawaii). However, the USA has a far higher population. In 2017, there were 325.7 million people in the USA, but only 24.6 million people in Australia. This means Australia only had 7.6% of the USA's population, which means there are vast areas of land that are not inhabited by people on this continent. Even the USA has areas with few or no people. This means the world could still have room for more than 7.7 billion people, which was the population in 2018. However, Earth has a limited amount of resources. Just because there's room for more people, humans could still run out of resources. It would be very difficult to determine how many people the world can support because it depends on technologies like farming, electricity production, and transport. Developed, advanced countries generally produce more pollution on the planet than developing, poor countries. China and the USA are the two biggest producers of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, which damage the planet. This means population growths in these countries have a way worse effect than population growths in poor countries. However, living a life of poverty is very painful and not recommended. Copenhagen, Denmark and Porto Alegre, Brazil are two cities that are surprising because they have high living standards and relatively low per capita emissions. [link] Regardless of where people are born, too many new babies causes a problem in the group because of a baby boom with the rest of the population having stagnant ages. This eventually causes far more babies than people of other age groups. The New Light lets this happen anyway because the world leaders and scientists get together and discuss terraforming Mars to move there as a solution. Sometimes the New Light also kills some babies with miscarriages and fatal diseases.
Since 1998 is close to 2000, the New Light and its members spread awareness about the Y2K bug, an upcoming disaster in the coding of computerized systems that is expected to cause havoc in computers and computer networks around the world starting on January 1, 2000. Many programs represent four-digit years with only the final two digits, so 1998 is 98. This means 2000 is 00, which cannot be distinguished from 1900. According to the Society of New Light, software and hardware failures in computers will devastate banks, insurance companies, utility systems, government records, devices that contain computer chips (elevators, temperature-control systems, medical equipment, etc), and more. Even before the year 2000 begins, the world must beware of September 9, 1999 because it can be written in the numeric format 9/9/99. This could conflict with the date value 9999 that is often used to specify an unknown date. The New Light uses this international fear-mongering, frantic preparations, and programming corrections to entice people to join its Society as a solution. [link]
The New Light promises to move the world into the new future if everyone joins its Society. Its numbering system is used in this website's tabs for the summaries of plots. However, the New Light secretly plans on taking all its Society members and their belongings to the beginning when modern humanity (Homo sapiens) began to exist about 300,000 years ago. [link] It also plans on taking the Internet, renewable energy sources, and futuristic things into that past. Then it plans on colonizing the newly reverted utopia with the resources intact so they won't run out. The New Light needs enough energy to do this, which is why it needs more and more members to produce dueling energy. This ironically makes the New Light seem benevolent. While its intentions seem good on the surface, it constantly strives for perfection, so it punishes nonmembers with wars, diseases, famines, and chaos. It moralizes people to be righteous while inflicting severe punishments on whoever does not meet its perfect expectations.
During Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen's reign in ancient Egypt, Dartz arrived as a merchant from Greece or Persia. The ancient Egyptians didn't trust him at first, but gradually grew used to him. He offered the pharaoh a chance to victory, but the pharaoh rejected his offer. Dartz tried corrupting the priests by offering them the power necessary to defeat the invading army. [link] However, the younger twin brother of the pharaoh, Akhenaden, ordered a group of soldiers to massacre the villagers of Kul Elna to transform them into seven Millennium items. The only surviving villagers of the slaughter were Thief King Bakura and Tragoedia. [DM manga volume 4 chapter 30, DM anime episode 209, GX manga volume 4 chapter 31] Both grew up with vengeful feelings. Thief King Bakura tried to get revenge on the pharaoh's son, Atem, but Atem defeated him. Another enemy, Zorc Necrophades, tried to destroy the world, but was stopped when Atem sacrificed his life by sealing himself and Zorc within the Millennium Puzzle. Atem used a very powerful magic spell that included his name, and then wiped his own memories to prevent the spell from ever reviving Zorc. Dartz left Egypt after Atem's death. [link] The Puzzle was then shattered into pieces by Priest Seth, who became the next pharaoh. Zorc managed to seal a fragment of his soul within the Millennium Ring.
Yamitsukai Shigeo was born in a rich family and his father was a millionaire business owner. When the boy was nine years old, he accidentally set his family's house on fire, which caused his parents to die. He suffered from second and third-degree burns on his body and lost his eyebrows. However, he was never blamed for it because he was too young and it had been accidental. Because he was always told it was not his fault, he believed it. [link] The fire caused Shigeo to develop a love for control and he became a troubled youth, so he saw a psychiatrist. [link] [link] He also began to dislike light and spent a lot of time in darkness. It confused him that he didn't like the sun since he liked fire. [link] He obtained his parents' fortunes as soon as he was of age.
When Keith Howard was two years old, his parents gave him Cyndia as a sister. The first thing he said when he met her was, "She looks like a baby doll," and the two siblings became close. While growing up, she went to him for help with school work because she enjoyed her big brother's help. Leaving her behind was Keith's only regret about leaving home. He was a kid looking for his independence. He wanted to earn his own fortune and be his own man. Unfortunately, he missed out a lot on his sister's life, including her birthdays, the holidays that he should've spent with her, and even the wedding she was planning to have, which ended up unfinished because she died. Keith felt it was a miracle he could even make it to her funeral. [link]
When Momono Masumi was a child, his grandparents shunned him because his pale skin, pale hair, and reddish eyes didn't fit their traditional views. His grandparents owned a shrine and abused him the most, treating him like a demon child. One time in a lightning storm, they locked Masumi outside in the storehouse when he was only seven. He thought the lightning was going to get him, so since then he's been terrified of lightning. His parents were a bit nicer at first. His father was an office worker and his mother stayed at home. However, because his grandparents were so cruel, his parents grew more distant and apathetic to their son. They even treated him as if he didn't exist in their own home, so Masumi grew up with an obsession for power and money to fill in his hatred and emptiness. [link]
When identical twins, Tenma Gekkou and Yakou, were born, their mother died due to complications from her C-section. Since Yakou was the younger twin who had been born a few minutes after, he always felt like it was his fault that their mother had died. Pegasus was lonely and depressed after his lover, Cyndia, died. He wanted her back, so he learned about ancient Egyptian Shadow Games. He formed Industrial Illusions and made a new game called Duel Monsters based on duels of ancient times. There was a small tournament held in Japan to promote the new game. Hibiki Koyo won in the junior division, so he received a Winged Kuriboh from Pegasus. [GX manga volume 5 chapter 35] After several years of grieving Cyndia's death, Pegasus decided to foster many orphans from around the world. He found Yakou and Gekkou in a Japanese orphanage, and Mr. Crocketts took a picture of Pegasus giving the twins a tickling hug on the day he took them in his home. Pegasus taught the kids to become skilled duelists and card designers.
One day Mr. Bakura was driving his car with his wife, Rayna, and their twin children, Ryou and Amane. He had a tragic accident that killed Rayna and Amane. Even though the accident was not his fault, he suffered from survivor guilt ever since. [link]
Oshiro Kotsuzuka was born into a traditional family with hypothyroidism, a glandular condition wherein the thyroid gland does not make enough thyroid hormone. Symptom includes a dull look, dry and brittle hair, jaundice (yellowing of skin and nails), lack of muscle tone, short height, sluggishness, dry and itchy skin, decreased sweating, and intolerance to cold. It is this condition that made Kotsuzuka look like a zombie since he wasn't able to get it treated. When his parents first saw his face, they believed he was cursed, so they abandoned the newborn into a basket, stuck a name tag on the handle, and left it outside an orphanage. He spent most of his life in that poor, unkind, over-populated place, where he was tormented by his peers for his looks because the other children didn’t like him much, were scared of him, avoided him, or flat-out bullied him. When he was seven, he ran away to the city and was stuck on the streets, relying on the occasional kindness of a stranger who was willing to let him stay under their roof for a night or two. Takaido Asahi came from a family of hardcore, unforgiving perfectionists. He did well until the pressure from them caused him to slip and completely flunk his final year of high school, and he was thus kicked out onto the streets and spent several years starving and homeless. Satake Rakurai’s family was average. He did poorly in school, did half-assed chores, and was very lazy. This cost him when his parents went broke and were forced to find a way to save money, which resulted in Satake getting kicked out since he was a drain on their wallets. Three years on the streets taught him to be self-sufficient and hard work, which saved him in the long run.
About 3,000 years after Atem died, a high school boy named Mutou Yuugi who loves games was chosen by destiny to save the world from evil. Yuugi received the ancient Egyptian artifact, the Millennium Puzzle, from his grandpa. He solved it after eight years, and unlocked the spirit of Yami Yuugi (Atem), the ancient Pharaoh who has no memories of his own. Yami took over and challenged those who hurt his friends to Shadow Games, then punished them with Penalty Games. Their best friends were Jounouchi Katsuya, Mazaki Anzu, and Honda Hiroto. Zorc resurfaced by possessing Bakura Ryou as the villain, Yami Bakura, wishing to obtain all seven Millennium items in order to resurrect himself.
A shy boy named Aoyama Shougo obtained a Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Kaiba Seto wanted the powerful card for himself, so his henchmen tried to steal it. Jounouchi got rid of the henchmen and put the Red-Eyes in Yami's deck so Yami could use it against Kaiba in a duel. This helped Shougo realize his potential as a duelist. [Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: War of the Dragons] [link]
Yakou, Gekkou, Richie Merced, and Depre Scott became Pegasus's four top duelists. [DM manga Yu-Gi-Oh! R] Kotsuzuka, Takaido, and Satake eventually ran into Bandit Keith Howard, who trained them to be duelists and his henchmen for Duelist Kingdom. Kotsuzuka became his most intelligent gang member, Takaido was the cowardly pyromaniac, and Satake had the strongest stability both physically and emotionally. [link]
Yamitsukai knew he wasn't going to keep his riches forever if he didn't replace what he spent, so he invested in Duel Monsters and worked for the creator of the game, Pegasus, for several years as the Player Killer of Darkness. He also became known as PaniK and one of the richest men to ever play the game. One of PaniK's maids found out about his past in a tape recording, but PaniK warned her not to get too nosy. [link] [link] PaniK suffered an embarrassing defeat by Yami Yuugi during Duelist Kingdom. After receiving a Penalty Game, he got the same reoccurring dream of being in pitch blackness with a scattered puzzle of hundreds of pieces. He tried to put the puzzle together, but kept failing, which filled him with frustration and a loss of control. [link] PaniK retired to learn from his mistakes, and now lives in a dark castle near Domino City.
Amane was mysteriously brought back to life several years after her death, but Mrs. Bakura remained dead. Ryou was thrilled to have his sister again. However, Mr. Bakura still remained distant from his children due to his survivor guilt. To this day, Amane is still very upset at her father for being absent so often for his job as an archaeologist. Mr. Bakura sometimes sends letters to his children, but he often asks about the Millennium Ring. [link]
Yuuki Juudai is an expert duelist who comes from a time period that is several years after Yuugi's adventures. He received a Winged Kuriboh from Yuugi in one dimension, and from Hibiki Koyo in another dimension. Juudai is a student at Duel Academia. With the help of his friends, Marufuji Shou, Tenjouin Asuka, Manjoume Jun, Johan Andersen, and other students, Juudai defeated the Seven Star Assassins; overcame Saiou Takuma's Society of Light; survived Professor Cobra's survival duels; learned to control the dark powers of his dark side, Haou Juudai; rescued Johan from Yubel; reformed his bond with Yubel; and defeated Trueman and Darkness. Pegasus estimated in 2005 that the Light of Destruction was created several hundred million years ago (数億年前, sūokunenmae) from a white hole. [GX anime episode 97 from 3:16 to 3:26] However, this was just an educated guess. He was incorrect because the Light was created 13.8 billion years ago at the beginning of the universe in the group. Yami, Yuugi, Juudai, and Yuusei teamed up together to defeat Paradox. In another dimension, Tragoedia from Kul Elna, Egypt got revenge about 3000 years later during Juudai's time. Juudai and Manjoume managed to defeat him with the help from their duel spirits, Winged Kuriboh and Light and Darkness Dragon.
Continued in Summary of 1998-13 (2011 in real life)