Yuugi Mutou is the protagonist of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. He starts out as a shy, noticeably short kid who gets picked on constantly at school and ends up isolated because of it. His grandfather gives him the Millennium Puzzle and tells him that solving it will grant him one wish. Yuugi solves it and wishes for friends—and immediately gets them. What he doesn't realize at first is that solving the puzzle awakens a spirit trapped inside it.
Once Yuugi figures this out, the two become incredibly close. Yuugi calls the spirit "Mou Hitori No Boku" (The Other Me), and the spirit calls him "Aibou" (Partner). From then on, Yuugi becomes the spirit's vessel, and his main goal becomes helping the spirit—who's eventually revealed to be an ancient Pharaoh—recover his lost memories. With his friends backing him up, Yuugi guides the Pharaoh through increasingly intense situations as he pieces his past together.
Yuugi lives mostly with his grandfather since his parents are constantly traveling for work. His mother Ashita shows up briefly in the second season during an argument between Yuugi and the spirit. Thanks to growing up around his grandfather's expertise, Yuugi becomes genuinely talented at Duel Monsters. Most of his early deck is actually his grandfather's—given to him in the first episode to duel Seto Kaiba—but by the final season, Pharaoh's Memory, he's built his own deck centered around magicians, spellcasters, and machines.
Despite being treated as something of a "ladies' man" in the series' filler content, Yuugi's had eyes for Anzu Mazaki, his childhood friend, from the beginning.
Yuugi appears a few times in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, most notably as an adult in the opening episode, where he gives Judai Yuki a Winged Kuriboh before heading off.
He's also a major character in the 10th Anniversary movie Ultra Fusion! Bonds Over Time and Space!, where he teams up with Judai and Yusei Fudou from 5D's to fight Paradox and save both Duel Monsters and time itself.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
