The Worst Antagonist in Yu-Gi-Oh!... (unfortunately)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- Join me as we delve into the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s most notorious antagonists! Today, we’re singling out Marik Ishtar to answer a burning question: Is he the worst villain in the series? From his ambitious yet flawed schemes to his struggles with control, I'll dissect every aspect of his character and compare him with the likes of Pegasus, Bakura, and others. Before you head to the comments, watch as I break down their strategies, histories, and the subtle intricacies that make or break a Yu-Gi-Oh! antagonist. Don't forget to share your favorite villain in the comments below and join the discussion. Let's get started and see if Marik really deserves the title of "The Worst Antagonist in Yu-Gi-Oh!"
#anime
#yugioh
#manga - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Marik: "i do hope nobody looks in my general direction. Otherwise, my whole evil plan is fEHcked."
To be fair, Bakura, Pegasus, Ishizu, Shadi and Yugi were chosen by their items. Isn't funny that the one guy who wasn't chosen seemed to have the hardest time using his item to help him. He was only able to use the God cards and the Rod because of his Gravekeeper background.
That´s a good point!
@@AnimeHiro Not to mention Marik wouldn't have won even once had he played fair. With Joey, he barely succeeded, Mai would've won had Marik played cleaner with her and Yami Bakura could've just made the rules his own as his true form of Zorc.
Marik was chosen by his item.
Marik wasnt trying to beat Joey
Hé was trying to kill him
If hé attecked with dark Friend hé whould have won@@benouzgane1929
He was the only one doing things because of his own life story and expressing free will with his actions
the other guys were possessed, even the pharaoh spirit didnt have memories so he was inside other peoples plans, the plot needed people like pegasus or kaiba to be active for the story to proceed, or a mastermind like marik
Marik's shortcomings makes sense when he's still in his og form. Real Marik is just a petulent child being blinded by trauma and acting out his anger onto the world. It makes sense that he was impulsive, would make bad choices, and not progress his plans as well as he wanted. The problem starts when he randomly gets DID and transforms into a more villainous version of himself. Not only does he lose all his depth because Yami Marik has no motivation, he's just a sadist, but also his terrible duel performance stinks that badly because the story keeps building him up as the ultimate uber terrifying evil.
Even Bakura would have beaten Marik if it wasn't for the Plot Armor that is Good Marik not knowing everything about a card he had and studied for Lord knows how long.
That always pissed me off! Your only trait is studying the God cards and whining about wanting to be Pharoah. How do you NOT know how Ra works?! 😂
@@N3llyTCP yeah, and like I said, he had Ra for longer than he was known to be a character, probably before Duelist Kingdom, so whenever I watch it, I think "How do you not know about the Point Transfer?"
I mean to be fair to Marik, the anime just kept adding random effects on RA every duel it was played in lmao
I mean marik was doing something that no one else was doing
Not just telling his opponents what his card does
@@ugochukwunyere3196 so Good Marik didn't want his body back and lied to Bakura about not knowing about the Point Transfer and Immortal Phoenix Mode?
Marik's greatest plot armour moment has to be Joey fainting before he could attack, as Marik recognised himself that he would lose if Joey was conscious for 1 more second. Meaning if Joey held on a moment longer he would have beaten the villain of the arc and obtained the winged dragon of Ra. This would have made Joey equal to Kaiba and Yugi and cemented Marik's position as a complete failure of a villain.
TGS Anime dissected that duel. Marik used mostly valid strategies, so the argument that he was holding back against Joey for lolz doesn't hold up. The biggest mistake Marik made was not using Drillago to attack Joey's last Scapegoat. HOWEVER, since doing so would have made Joey less likely to use Rocket Warrior on Drillago, which triggered Card of Last Will and let Marik draw 5 cards, I'd say that was a wise strategy. Also, had Marik attacked Joey's Scapegoats when he summoned Helpoemer, Joey would have had to summon Jinzo ASAP, which would have made Joey win before Marik could draw Lava Golem.
Which would have been a way more interesting plot direction than the usual - the protagonists 2ic almost gets the job done but not quite, because only the main character can beat the main villain of the arc.
Plus, the final duel could have then been the Joey v Yugi rematch, instead of that being an offscreen thing. Yugi still wins, but the match is close enough that he recognizes Joey as a true duelist (which was Joeys main thing in battle city) and returns red-eyes in exchange for ra
I heard Kaiba's ego couldn't let that happen so it transcended the realm of fiction to change the writers direction.
I love Joey as a character. Even when I was young. He really deserved that duel. It would have been awesome if he actually won.
@@Nemo12417BTW, there's a comment on TGS video that said he ran simulations on different scenarios Marik and Joey could have done and in all 4 scenarios presented by TGS Joey won all 4, which if it is true it's insane
Reminder that Marik’s ultimate strategy of giving his life points and fusing with Ra is hard countered by SPARKS
which is also one of the worst cards in the game lol
Sparks was banned in the Battle City Tournament. All cards that dealt Effect Damage were. Half of Marik's deck was Tournament Illegal.
Technically, only cards that had the sole effect of dealing burn damage or destroying monsters were banned. Cards that did either but under specific conditions were allowed. Raigeki was banned, but Time Wizard was allowed since it had a chance of failure. Bonz had Skull Invitation, which dealt burn damage but only when his opponent lost cards.
@@Nemo12417 I completely forgot that Time Wizard did damage. Also, I've never watche the episode where Bonz duels Bakura, so my only knowledge of it is the panel of Bakura walking away from the soulless husks of Keith's minions in the manga.
@bloodlustquartet6234 well, it damages the user if it fails, but that risk is why Joey could use it where Raigeki was banned.
I love how Yami Marik is just Normal Marik going Super Saiyan 😂😂😂
Zigfried was definitely the actual worst villian, though if we want to count movies...its probably Anubis. Dartz was basically a more characterized Anubis lol.
Zigfried was so bad, I actually forgot about him lol
@@AnimeHiro lol I thought you forgot him because he was the most harmless out of all of them
Why was he the worst?
@@darknessnaxxion hes Noah but worse
Well the thing I remember about him was that he was stupid enough to basically confess to an attempted cyber-attack against Kaibacorp on worldwide TV during the final duel.
I'm not gonna lie. How he beat Mai was annoying as Hell.
She outplayed the shit out of him. Got his God card and....
"Lol, u cant read ancient Egyptian. Get wrecked scrub!"
Like... that was some grade A bullshit.
In the Manga it was worse. The manga made it VERY CLEAR she was out of her depth involving herself with the God cards. The Anime actually gave Mai a huge buff to make it a little less of a bloodbath. The Ra being in Ancient Egyptian is in both versions though so it's less BS when we consider Ra was the strongest of the 3 and Pegasus put that safeguard on it specifically.
I agree. People talk about how Joey got hoed by falling unconscious before declaring an attack, but IMHO Joey was living on borrowed time anyway. Odion completely destroyed him in their duel, so I can't be too upset. But Mai did everything right and then lost to absolute bullshit. Mai deserved better.
And the asspull wasn't necessary due to literally the previous duel showing that only those with a Millennium Item or a connection to Atem can control a God Card.
I'm wondering why she bothered to play it when Odion got fucking destroyed.
@@Anonymice Odion got destroyed because he played a cheap knockoff card that wasn't made by Pegasus. Marik was playing the real one in his deck, and that's the one Mai stole.
Also it isn't surprising that the battle city villain has the weakest writing. After all, Takahashi was practically forced to write that arc to promote the card game. It makes sense he'd half ass elements of it.
Worse when you find out Joey was ment to beat em..I shit you not.
@@Carzeyday I keep hearing this but I've never seen a source.
@@Carzeyday Actually, that makes _entirely_ too much sense, particularly in the Japanese version.
nah his plan to use slifer against yugi makes sense.
Kaiba has a god card thus would be a harder challenge, marik however at the time didnt know kaiba had obelisk and thought his sister still did. He later found out kaiba had it but thought kaiba cant possibly control it. So he sent Lumis and Umbra after both yugi and kaiba.
With strings vs yugi. Yugi having no god card is the easier target. So the plan makes sense. Using joey against him was to show just how dangerous he really was, that even his friends can be pawns in his master plan. In fact had joey not broken out of the mind control small yugi would've died here. Ultimately Yugi could not win that duel and had a higher level of traumatization to it.
How was marik suppose to know the power of friendship could break a millennium items power?
Yami Marik's style of dueling is to torment souls into giving up, when faced against actual skill he crumbles because he's use to having everything given to him as a king would.
He's one of the more threatening foes Yugi has faced as he can mess with your memories and break your soul... Zigfried von Schroeder is probably the worst by far being a pink hair rip off pegasus.
Without atem or another millennium user, Yami Marik would've won just by his shadow game magic, as its a tactic that is within the kaiba corp rules. If the other person cant continue dueling or passes out, they surrender the match.
His sister, ishizu ishtar foresaw the future in that she was always destine to defeat her brother, but thanks to kaiba altering fate they created a new outcome where marik was saved and rethought his life over instead of Ishizu having to destroy her brother and banish him into the shadow realm.
I actually do agree with this and thats where the anime I think fails in this remark for me with Marik, Marik issue for me was the fact his wins felt very given, and its not like he won always cause of him breaking them down its more he was given the win cause for Mai and Bakura (Mai did a misplay and could've just won with what she had, Bakura could've just set Monster reborn before using exchange). I think the Manga portrays this better but thats cause we see what he does to Mai especially during there duel its much more brutal, and makes more sense to me honestly as a villain, while I still don't find him my "favorite" villain to me in the manga he is much better
Zigfried is not a rip off of Pegasus
They do both have similarities in dress style, hair, way of talking and both living in castles and being rich businessmen.
@@darksideofevil13 they do not talk remotely the same in the dub at least
@@twixtwix2915 I mean, they both come of as smug and flamboyant with how they talk.
Bakura hands down. He's my favourite antagonist because he has an anti hero quality to him due to his duality of spirit. His occult deck was also second ONLY to the pharaoh in fair played duels so you can't really get a better villain for this time period.
The other best part about Bakura, he never plays the same strategy twice forcing his opponents to beware the unexpected.
I always liked how, no matter the era, Bakura is always one step ahead of the arc's meta. Duelist Kingdom about big number smash? Effect destruction and hand ripping. Battle City revolving more around remove monster punch face strategies? Pillow fort control into an instant win combo. Little Yugi running advantage engines and monsters resistant to battle removal? Bakura had _mill._ He always hits his opponents with strategies completely outside the context of what they're ready for.
Yami Bakura was always super cool for me while growing up, and in retrospect he was the best duelist in original Yu-Gi-Oh with the most creative strategies. He was just unfortunate to lose to plot armor and BS over and over again lol
Not mention the terrible job the dub did with Malik in making him want world domination and not just having a freedom complex which is way less cliché and even sympathetic.
Honestly the only Duel where Marik was the best was in my Opinion the Duel where Yugi dueled against Strings
When Marik controlled Bandit Keith, he gave him "Zera the Mant"... a Ritual Monster with no effect that didn't matched with Keith's Machine Monsters (and this was even before Tribute Summening was added, so he had to tribute 2 Monster for a 2800 ATK Beatstick)
When Marik controlled Joey, he not only wasted one of the most powerful cards back then (Raigeki) when Yugi had just 1 Monster on his side of the Field (Gazelle in Defense Position, which only had 1200 DEF)... it was also his card that allowed Joey to end the Duel in a Draw (In the Anime, Meteor of Destruction had the random additional Effect that Joey can force one of Yugi's Monsters to attack him directly... even after Yugi's Points have already dropped down to Zero.
Against Mai, Bakura and Joey he won thanks to Plot armor.
When controlling String, Marik had the perfect Combo... Revival Jam protects Slifer from any attacks thanks to Jam Defender, it then returns to the field and Marik was allowed to draw 3 more cards... making Slifer even stronger. Yugi only won because he cheated and used Brain Control to get control of it while it was regenerating
Even the Strings duel showed Marik being dumb. Yugi didn't even need to Brain Control Marik into an infinite draw combo. One Osiris hit about 17k, a single Card Destruction would've ended the game on the spot (which is actually where I _thought_ their duel was going when I saw that episode). Marik had 5 on board, 6 in GY. So with 17 in hand after Buster Blader hit Revival Jam and it came back, Card Destruction would've forced 17 draws from Strings, which is more than he had left out of a 40 card deck. Strings' deck accidentally kills itself without a terrible amount of effort. The only way he _doesn't_ deck out is if the opponent runs out of monsters to defend with (keeping in mind that setting is a thing), or he gets another Humanoid Worm Drake online. One beater, no matter how big, doesn't matter alone.
Almost as dumb as in his duel with Mai, where the complete buffoon attempted the same Revival Jam / JD / Jam Breeding Machine combo. Not only did Mai completely clap it with backrow removal, but even if it worked, Ra would've had 1500 ATK and DEF. Yes, I'd like a Mega Ultra Chicken please, but hold the Mega and the Ultra.
@@draketheduelist Ooof good point... and honestly far more reasonable then the whole Revival Jam BS
Wow... if only they didn't had Yugi use Card Destruction in the previous Duel...
Yami Marik felt like a major cop out to excuse the evil shit he was doing prior to the finals
Marik is bad, but Melvin on the other hand, don’t give him hugs, hide behind doors
As much as I understand Pegasus's intentions, I think it is kind of stupid how he went about things. He already basically had full access to Kaiba's virtual technology, his island was full of it. Plus Kaiba was already in the works with the virtual reality game thing. Plus way before that Kaiba's father has already made use of that to implant Noah's consciousness. Pegasus could have used that to upload his dead wife and then spent his time figuring out a way to implement that into allowing his wife's consciousness to move about freely using other means.. all he would of had to do is to team up with Kaiba. Pegasus had the money, but Kaiba had the imagination and brains..
This, I wanted to like Pegasus. But nothing about how he went about his goal makes any sense.
One thing I will say is Noah's arc was filler. So they couldn't have used it in conjunction with Pegasus’s canon arc.
Well it also started the eye curpeted Pegasus so it did make more evil
Interesting take! It’s good to see someone with different content 😁
I agree that normal Marik was already pretty evil already but maybe it was under influence of Yami Marik probably
I always said this, Marik is by far the worst, and the flaws don’t even stop there.
Even his plans made no sense, if all he wants is to kill Atem, why even bother with the card games? He has an army of goons that uses force to get what he wants, just stab Yugi and be done with it. “But he wants to defeat him at his pwn game-“ no he doesn’t, he had his underlings duel him in death games multiple times without his influence or Ra and he even resorted to cheating in some of their duels, meaning he wouldn’t have beaten him fair and square anyway, so why not just kill him? Just kidnap him and drown him with the anchor, why do you bother with a duel?
His motivations are even worse. He wants to kill Atem because Shadi just lied about the death of his father, a father that deserved to die anyway. The second he just learn he was lied to, he completely revert back into a good guy, as if he wasn’t portrayed as a pure evil psycho a few chapters ago. His motivation was forced in the first place and his shift to the good side is even worse.
Terrible character.
He mentioned that in order to win the god cards and status as pharaoh or something he must defeat yugi in a duel due to prophecies
@@shujinkoMK yet Pandora was about to kill him in a death game, and he wasn’t controlled by Marik.
I'm pretty sure that was the English dub, since they didn't want to say the k word.
It's a show about a deadly children's card game. What do you expect, a Gray's Anatomy Arc?
@@misterOrca4 yes, and the author used that gimmick very well for Pegasus’s goal. Pegasus couldn’t force his ways into accomplish his goals, he had to beat Yugi in a card game in order to take over Kaiba Corp. his goal aligned with the card game. Marik’s goal doesn’t require any stupid card games, he could just kill people, heck, he LITERALLY tries to multiple times against anyone that isn’t Yugi. He threatened to kill Tea in his regular form, and tried to murder Odion, straight up murder with his rod.
I like the idea of a villain that actually sucks but is just so evil he becomes incredibly formidable. Like, he tortures, mind controls and murders people and everyone else is like “dude, this is a show about children’s card games, what you doing???”
The thing that really rubs me the wrong way about Marik is that his dueling skills absolutley suck, which makes him a joke of a villian in a show focused on card games. His wins feel like the plot bent over backwards for him to win because you can't have the main villain beat by second rate duelists like Joey or Mai. I've seen some people defend his dueling skills saying he was "toying" with Mai and Joey and could of beaten them at any time but that seems like pure cope to me. Pegasus would also toy with his opponents and sarcastically pretend to be suprised, but the difference is you still KNEW Kaiba had no chance of winning, and the fact the former champion of the game got slaughtered effortless in a duel made him all the more intimidating. Watching Duelist Kingdom it's obvious that no character other than yugi would of stood a chance against Pegasus. The same can't be said for Marik.
Now you could make an arguement that in the case of both Pegasus and Marik, both main villians were only that intimidating because of using their respective millenium items to cheat. But the difference is pegasus's form of cheating directly makes him much harder to beat him at a duel. Being able to see what cards you play and know your intended strategy, is a kind of power suited for a gamemaster. Marik's millenium rod on the other hand has nothing to do with games, and is just used to torture his opponents until they buckle. Since none of Marik's cheating or powers has anything directly to do with how well he plays the game, he feels more like a generic anime villian with dark powers and bs plot amour (in the form of Ra) that was hamfisted into a show about card games.
TGS Anime dissected his duel with Joey. Marik passed up several opportunities to attack on the count of underestimating Joey. Mai I'll give you, but he could have beaten Joey were he not so cocky.
@@darksideofevil13 I just watched TGS Anime's vid. He himself says there were misplays on both sides. Marik misplayed due to prioritizing his sadistic urges to torture Joey over winning the duel. Joey on the otherhand misplayed due to being overly cautious. Becauses of this even assuming both were playing at their best, its still a pretty even duel.
@@captainzoltan7737 It's been awhile since I've seen it. I forgot the overly cautious part with Joey. If that's the case then fair enough. I guess you'd have to go full nerd and analyze what every misplay they did would have lead to if they were playing at 100% to determine who would have definitively won.
Gigachad Bakura vs Virgin Marik
Can we *not,* with the incel-speak?
@@christopherb501bro you’re on an anime video and you’re surprised to see incels?
@@christopherb501 Is that you Marik?
We also have Dartz and Noah from filler seasons
Zigfried crying at the corner
Marik is what you call a flashy character.
Marik was one of my favorite characters when I was younger, I would try building my deck around Ra all because Marik had it, but I must say, years later, including today, I'm coming to the realization that Marik was not only a bad duelist, but a bad villain and it sucks because he was the introduction to the Egyptian God Cards and the first step into uncovering Atem's past and Kaiba's connection to it.
It was clear that he didn't really have much of a deck. His main strategy was throwing Ra into the grave to bring it back with Monster Reborn. His deck needs to be rebuilt from the ground up and if we were to use just the cards from the Battle City Arc, he should have included more cards from his Rare Hunters. He did use some of the Mask cards, but other cards he should have had was the Mask of Restrict.
I feel bad for Marik, he had the coolest theme in one of if not the best arc in yugioh. they actually nerfed marik to make yugi at least stand a chance. 2 gods cards and a busted millennium item, and a black smuggling organization how was yugi a dude with a shit deck suppose to compete with that. People forget that fighting yugi the king of cheats, always fall flat on their faces.
I love Dartz. He was my favorite because he didn't have a connection to the Egyptian stuff.
It's like what abridged Ishizu said "Marik you're not evil, you're just an angry child"
I think the point that Takahashi tried to get across was that Zork was acting through everyone that had an item from the beginning. Atem was evil from being trapped with him in the puzzle for three millennia until Yugi's friendship brought him back to his true self. Shadi, who everyone seems to forget was introduced as an antagonist funnily enough, wanted to test Yugi at any cost and had to be proven the value of friendship. Bakura was the most influenced because of his link to the thief king and self isolation.
Pegasus told Atem that the items had a dark intelligence, which Atem mistook for himself initially. Even Kaiba, who was linked to one of the priests, was described by Mokuba as seeming possessed by a demon after his first duel.
Zork is a manifestation of evil born from the darkness in the hearts of humans, just like Dark Malik. Malik was just another puppet used to torment Atem for a bit longer, he could have replaced Bakura who was intended to free Zork but didn't need to. Even though Bakura ultimately lost, Zork can always come back anyway as we see in the film. Win or lose, it's all just one big sadistic game to Zork.
I do think it's a shame Malik wasn't written stronger because his design and backstory are so good. But in truth he was an afterthought; Takahashi based him on the concept of a voice in his head nagging him to meet his next work deadline while he just wanted to have fun. That's why his thing is mind control. He was more or less a middle finger to publishing execs.
Ultimately, as cool as Battle City is, it's really just filler warming us up for the real final battle with Bakura. Even Kaiba was originally just a one off opponent whose popularity brought him back. Many details would've been fleshed out more if not for Takahashi getting hospitalised and a bag containing story notes being stolen from him.
Someone once claimed to me that it was manga readers not liking Malik that led to the addition of Dark Malik, who became more popular, to the story? I have no idea what the source for that is, though. To me, Dark Malik was a mistake. Malik is interesting enough as a character on his own. He didn't need the Saiyan haircut, the same exact goal as Zork especially since he already shares Kaiba and thief Bakura's goal of revenge but for different reasons, or the cape he'd already ditched after donning plain clothes.
Malik is more deserving of his own spinoff than most of the protagonists we've had since Yugi. He had so much more potential as a character and you can tell Takahashi did have a soft spot for him since he brought him back for the final arc and the film.
You should seperate Yami Marik from regular. Regular in not the best villain but has cool powers and plans as well as a tragic backstory. Yami Marik has no character outside of being sadistic, no motivation outside of keeping control of his body, and no plans or cool powers outside Ra and a knife inside the Millennium Rod.
He is 100% worse than Zigfried and Anubis
His design is one of the best in the series, but he is barely a character, nor a good duelist, winning by his opponents not knowing Ra's effects after taking it away from him twice.
What? You completely ignore Zigfried von Schroeder?!?!?! I mean.... I would too, but ........ I would too!
"Yami Marik" is not really a thing, Marik was "dark" right from the getgo, his "Yami form" is literally Marik going insane and he didn't care about winning childrens card game, all he wanted to do was to hurt Yugi which is the reason behind his downfall
TL;DR Marik fucked around and found out
It is clear Odion was the brain of the operation. The moment he got incapacitated, it was clear Marik did not actually have a plan.
Odion also felt like he was more genuinely skilled as a duelist too.
Dartz was amazing for a filler more than Noah Kaiba
Marik was actually a good kid until the tombkeepers initiation, which is where he developed hatred and his personality was split. Odion did his own ritual, which apparently kept mariks hatred in check. however, i think Odions tatoos and general presence was way less effective than we think. Yami marik was always there, pulling the strings, whispering, promising freedom from his life of servitude. if Yami Marik was the one who told odion to summon Ra, knowing Ra would strike him, then thats actually a brilliant way to set himself free.
we can call it plot armor, but i say we call it... divine intervention is his actual super power. Yugi can will the cards he needs to the top of the deck, Marik can pray to god and god actually answers. like, he knows he can play like and idiot because he knows Ra will always step in and BS his way to a victory. its why hes so confident, and prefers to torture his opponent instead of trying to win.
too bad none of this was stated, and therefore not canon.
The thing with Marik that really gets me is how hard he actually threw the Strings match. Marik did not need Infinite Cards or Card of Safe Return, literally all he had to do was put Revival Jam in Atk position, use Slifer to deal with Yugi's monsters and attack him directly with Revival Jam until he wins
Yu-Gio-Oh! Duel Monsters villains in order for me; Bakura, Pegasus, Marik, Dartz, Diva (Darkside of Dimensions movie), Noah, Anubis (Pyramid of Light movie), and Zigfried.
He did make a crazy strategy for slipher. Yami yugi just broken duelist
Hes littreally the best what arr you talking about?
You forgot Siegfried Von Schroeder
Who 😅
I like to point out that even the abridged series even pointed out how dumb Marik's revenge plot was dumb and made no sense.
It makes more sense in the original. It's the dub that doesn't work.
what is the abridged series? Is it a manga?
@@ughjasmine It's a parody of Yu-Gi-Oh. Look up Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged. It's pretty funny. There's ones for other anime to. Like TFS DBZ Abridged, which is also pretty good.
@@darksideofevil13ohh thank you I’ll check it out !! did you happen to read the manga?
Also there's logic to why there's a Yami Marik. The Marik we see before did do evil things and that's cause the evil inside of him is there influencing him.
Great video
He got destroyed by joey & if joey hold up for few second he would've ended him then & there.
i'd say dartz is by far the best. unlike the others, he actually would have won without plot armor so strong it throws the very concept of math and infinity itself out the woodchipper
He was likely influenced by his evil side during early Battle City, as we see in the flashback when he just got his back carved the dark side pops out of him for a second when he says how angry he is before he sees Odion's face carvings.
Bakura is my favorite bad guy in yugioh
Bakura and Kaiba were actually antagonists before Pegasus.
Yugi (that is, the Pharaoh) is a much greater threat to Malik than Kaiba is, not a surprise he would prioritize him.
Technically Osiris defeated itself when Yugi claimed it, and Dark Malik was aware of Mai's inability to use Ra, so he let her take it. If he was somehow fighting against someone who could have read it, he would have not played around as much. Same principle for Jonouchi, wherein he purposefully toyed with him.
Malik's punishment games are for the sake of torture, giving them time to be rescued. He does not want to immediately inflict punishment like Dark Yugi or others.
Malik was confident Rashid could control God since he wanted to vindicate his brother's role as a fellow tombkeeper. It ultimately did not pan out, however, and he would never go so far as to try and kill him.
Marik was actually kind of shit at the card game, come to think of it. He didn't actually have a single clean win on screen outside of Bakura.
In a real tournament, that thing with the text on Ra's card would've gotten him disqualified as well :P
Who is your favorite villain/hero?
I wish we saw a merick vs kiba.
Small correction, Joey wasn't given a punishment at the end of his duel, he died during it, don't know entirely why Mai was able to get up though.
My favorite Yu-Gi-Oh antagonist is Pegasus. He's an absolute blast to watch with how looney and childish he fronts himself as, but can still be actually pretty threatening when the chips are down and he absolutely needs to be. I also think his final confrontation with Yugi was one of the most satisfying in the series: a total war between the Millennium Eye and Millennium Puzzle, each wielder using their capabilities to their fullest, and to see the Millennium Puzzle come out on top after a back-and-forth struggle between it and the Eye was super satisfying.
I'm not really sure if I can confidently say Marik is the worst antagonist in the series, but I can at least say that I don't feel he's nearly as cool or threatening as I did when I was younger. I think it mostly comes down to how many seeming asspulls there were from him, particularly with the Winged Dragon of Ra. They were trying to really sell the Winged Dragon of Ra as being a cut above Obelisk and Slifer with his effects gradually being revealed as time went on, I understand this, but the way that it was executed just made Marik seem like he was more reliant on flukes and asspulls than he probably really was. There's only so many times a villain can get seemingly bailed out of what should have been a loss before we start to question their competency, and whether they actually pose a genuine threat or not. A real shame too, because through the Slifer and Jam strategy, it was shown that he really was a capable duelist, and had the means to use strategies that would have beaten just about any opponent. Heck, even his strategy of dumping Ra into the Grave and reviving him with Monster Reborn was pretty clever for the time, now that I think about it. It's just something that doesn't get brought up all that much because of all the other stuff Marik has going against him.
It ultimately makes me wonder how much different of a villain Marik would be if the Egyptian God cards weren't involved, or, at the very least, Ra didn't have five or six hidden effects that we weren't allowed to know about until they came into effect from seemingly out of nowhere. I think my biggest issue with Marik really stems from how they approached the Winged Dragon of Ra, rather than any real fault of Marik as a character, so I wonder how much different my opinion on him would be if they either handled Ra's hidden effects differently, or we just got to see a more strategic side of Marik, rather than just banking on nobody knowing what the heck Mega Ultra Chicken does.
Marik even for DM era standarts was shit, he basically doesn't seem that good without ass pulls, Cheating, Shadow Games or Torture, hell I think even Ishizu and Odion would perform better than him in a no God scenario
Funniest thing yes I can see and admit he's a weak antagonist though the weakest would be Bakura. He actually did lose to Marik and lost to just about everyone else when it comes to the card game. The only victory he has via cards as far as I know is vs. Zombie Boy who has no on screen victories.
Here's a thought: If Bakura has to play Pegasus in the children card game instead of that beam struggle, he would've lost.
This is true! Though I give Bakura credit for planning his revenge against the pharoah since Duel monsters and his lost to Marik is the same reason, Mai, and Joey lose for plots sake. Like literally the guy could've set Monster reborn before he used Exchange and it makes even less sense that somehow Non-yami Marik didn't know anything about Ra's ability tied to Monster Reborn but Yami Marik did however. This is honestly my biggest issue with Marik is it felt more or less the plot made him win cause he's the main antag of the series not that he was cunning or strong, Bakura I felt the opposite he knew what he was doing overconfident sure but he definitely knew how to get his way (the man 1 vs 1 then took Pegasus millennium eye would've nearly stolen the Puzzle during duelist kingdom, and put Yugi in a tough spot using Bakura body as a shield to stop Yugi from trying to win in battle city), but sadly unlike Marik it felt instead the plot basically forced Bakura to lose to continue to current story.
It makes sense for Bakura though, his thing was D&D and he absolutely dominated Atem both times they dueled there. He only lost due to outside interference in both games.
As far as I can tell Yugi won their second duel without shenanigans (unlike every other quarter final duel of Battle City). The first time they dueled was both shenanigans and Bakura misplaying. He should have waited for Yugi to play a fourth monster THEN use Just Desserts for an OTK.
@@darksideofevil13 Tbf that one was a fully filler duel. In the manga they played dungeons and dragons.
@@thecabbageman1 True. I just find it funny Bakura played himself.
He's kinda my favorite solely for the fact that he quite literally sh*ts himself when he realizes he was about to loose to Joey.
Marik is a bad villain, because he isn't in forbidden memories
"Biological filler son" is wiiiiiild
In manga noah is truth son hes not filler whole arc on him manga
@@kikyomoon2996 wat
Honestly Marik point was that he was a dangerous duelist that could trick you however Marik is basically bad without his shenanigans
I love how odion was going to win until joey basically called marik a bitch, which led to marik himself feeling salty and ruining the match.
Yugi but all your villians want your rivals company
The disrespect to best girls Ino and Serenity
Does anyone know if there is a fan made manga of the waking the dragons arc??
For original Yugioh, Darts is my favorite villain. But for Yugioh as a franchise, I'd have to say Revolver from VRAINS is my favorite season-end villain.
Hello AnimeHiro!! After watching your video I do agree that Marik did have the most wasted potential. They definitely should have done things different. My Favorite Villain has to be Bakura. Like Marik though he actually didn't really win a lot of duels . Just a few and those are assumed and never shown. I would love to have seen Bakura win with Destiny Board or Dark Necrofear against of one of Yugi's friends. That would have definitely instilled fear into Yugi lol
Interesting video!
Personally growing up I always felt Bakura was the weakest villain. Pegasus was always a looming threat in DK and Marik was too at first and then a direct threat.
Comparatively, Bakura was just kinda there. He'd show up, then be defeated and disappear for awhile - only to come back, and then disappear again, though I haven't seen/read through all of Yu-Gi-Oh in a long time.
What I will say though, is I feel Marik and Pegasus has very interesting decks.
Pegasus mostly uses Toons, matching his playful facade. But his true boss monster Relinquished/Thousand Eyes Restrict are horrid fiends, just as there's more to Pegasus than his facade.
Meanwhile Yami Marik's deck is built on suffering and taking advantage of a shadow game. Yes he has a bunch of Ra focused cards, but he also has a ton of cards to do quick easy damage. Bowganian, Nightmare Wheel, Lava Golem. All cards that deal burn damage. Because Yami Marik loves inflicting pain. 200 Burn dmg isn't much, but if it also FEELS like you've been shot with a crossbow bolt, suddenly it does. Your opponent might give in even if his LP haven't reached zero.
I've struggled to pinpoint Bakura's deck beyond - He's a dark spirit, so he uses an occult deck.
Dude marik is the best character in yuguoh
Marik really should've just entered the tournament himself using both God cards as this was the anime summoning them would've been easy as almost all duels had duelists summoning their most powerful monsters
I think Marik's threat is a bit underrated in this video but I do understand the annoyance people have with him pulling out victories due to technicalities. Still I never found them that bad because it related to hos knowledge as a tomb keeper, but it would have been interesting to find out why Yami Marik new more about Ra than even regular Marik did in his duel with Bakura. I always saw him as Yugiohs Joner though. A force for chaos by the end for the sake of chaos that had grown completely out of control and gained unstable power from the shadows.
Also I think for worst villains it would either be Gozoboro Kaiba, Siegfried, or Alexander the great. I'll give Siegfried he beat Joey but that's about it.
Also in my opinion Bakura is pretty overrated, and Dartz is the strongest villain and the waking the dragons story line was my personal favorite.
Metin2 map2 song hits harder on this video
Moe-kuba. Ha.
To be fair to Joey, Mario’s weakest servant was cheating to beat Joey.
When Marik was dueling Yugi through Joey, he also could've just sent Joey's mind to the Shadow Realm if he felt that he'd be losing control of him. He could've ended it all, Yugi would never see his friend again, and yes while he wouldn't get the Puzzle, at least he's stirred up Yugi seeing how he killed his friend.
If anyone asked me who the most powerful villain in OG Yugioh was, I would've immediately said Marik. But this video helped me see differently. The dude was actually kinda useless. I always thought Joey nearly beating Marik was kinda odd, but I never really considered how it affected his main antagonist-ness.
I agree, Marik is a cool idea for a villain, he had all the right qualities, but the execution sucked
Marik and his evil self Malick
Heck no Evil Marik is actually the best and most bad ass Yugioh villain
I think you forgot somebody: Siegfried
Bakura was always my favourite, but I'm in the same boat as you with Marik, just design on its own I prefer him, he is cool in general, just not when you try to make him the villain cause he could've honestly just been another rare-hunter lackey and it'd of made no difference lol
Noah arc is still better than everything after Battle City and all the later series.
To be fair, Mai only fought well against Malik in the anime. Plus, he only got himself into a position to lose to Jounouchi because he was trying to torture him and show him up. Zorc Bakura is probably the most underrated duelist in the series. Defeating him is pretty impressive.
Pegasus win against yugi and Kaiba whereas Marik lose vs Joey who stand no chance against Kaiba 😭
Don Thousand is number 1, Dartz is number 2 and I don't have a number 3.
Counter argument, Marik was cool and hot
My favorite villain is Yami Marik.
I know I did not just hear someone say Waking Dragons arc was the best filler arc.
bakura thinks he's springtrap
Bakura was the perfect villain
I said for over a decade Marik sucks. He is the equivalent of a child that doesn't know how to play at a yugioh tournament but they have a gun so everyone lets him win so he doesn't use it.
Marik was my favorite antagonist, but that might be biased because I thought he was hot and he gave 8 year old me gay panic 😂
Pegasus is a close runner up because Relinquished is dope and he's a canonical weeb lol
He's STILL better than here than how he's depicted in Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged.
Joey v yugi strategy was really good, nerfed yugi and had him fight his friend with both lives on the line. Joey just built different
17:12 yea I knew
mostly on Yami Marik defense is he is too cocky where he can just outright win the duel with Ra but he just keeps underestimating his opponents until his duel with Yami Yugi. would have won if Seto didn't give Yugi Fiend Sanctuary to save him from Ra
Not entirely true, Joey and Mai could have won if wasn't for Marik plot armor
@Eric6761 plot armor could said the same for odion
Zigfred is my favorite villain
10:54 This actually makes sense when you consider:
1) To Marik, the puppet was just that. A puppet. He WAS personally duelling Yugi, it was no different than if he were calling him over the phone.
2) The Gods are meant to be invincible. AND Yugi didn't have a God. Honestly, it was more tactical to use the weaker Osiris to take out Yugi and save Ra to use on the guy who actually HAS a card that could remotely threaten him.
11:56 They're both going to die anyway, so why not draw it out and savour the moment? He's won the minute Yugi accepts the duel. He has no need to hurry or rush things. As for Osiris, it had nothing to do with how powerful the card was. Marik just didn't want it to sink into the sea along with Yugi.
13:10 Frankly, I consider Marik and Yami Marik to be two seperate characters with seperate dueling skills. Even the idea that he's just "Marik's split personality" is contradicted by Yami Marik, in the original manga, saying that he has waited "For over a thousand years" to meet the Pharoah
14:02 I want to make a more indepth look at Marik's dueling but I will say this on loop, Joey beating him was a sign of JOEY'S GROWTH, not Marik's incompetence. Also, Kaiba beating Joey was probably the biggest writing mistake in the entire anime. Yes, worse than the Virtual World arc.
Also, Marik DID beat Mai.
"But if she hadn't tried to summon Ra she-"
And if Mai had just attacked Yugi in Duelist Kingdom and not let him bluff her, she would have won.
If Marik hadn't toyed around with Joey, he would have beat him clean.
Here's the thing though.... They didn't. Mai let Marik goad her into summoning Ra, she made the wrong call. It was a legitimate loss.
15:00 Shadow Realm was invented by the dub. Marik didn't banish them anywhere to anything. Joey wasn't banished to the shadow realm, he was recovering from a coma after being legally dead (Experiencing electrocution, mutilation and burning alive will do that to a person. Also, Mai never escaped. She basically had to be rescued by Yami Marik's destruction.
16:36 I... get the feeling you have seen some clips of the manga, or maybe you've read the wikipedia articles on it, but not the manga itself.
Because the Yami side never "Sent people to the shadow realm", instead his duels involved forcing both players to feel what their monsters felt, then loading his deck up with cards straight out of a Saw movie. In the anime, this was reserved for Joey, but his other duels involved attacking the mind (Mai), destroying the body (Bakura) and erasing the soul (Yugi). As seen with Joey nearly dying from the torture and Mai being left so traumatised that a cult is able to take her in, these weren't just "Fun trips to another dimension, no consequence." The buzzsaw thing was also Pandora's idea, not Marik's and I beleive, though do not have a direct quote, that Yami Marik was the one influencing Marik's cruelest actions. Basically, it's not "Good Marik and Evil Marik" this is THE worst of Marik concentrated into one entity.
For comparison, Marik mistreated his family, but justified it as him doing this FOR them. With Ishizu, he warned her to stay out of his way, OR he would kill her. With Odion, he was callous with his life, but...
Yami Marik's entire GOAL was killing and torturing people. As slowly and painfully as possible. It wasn't a means to an end, it WAS the end.
Essentially, it's like comparing Darth Vader to Art the Clown. Both are ruthless and evil, but one is FAR more sadistic and brutal.
I'm sure, Pegasus can compete with Yami Marik.
I like Marik but Bakura/Dartz are definitely better, love him tho
well his rod belonged to kaiba's ancestor so that isn't marik's fault, jounouchi literally survived the attack of the strongest egyptian god while not even being the descendant of an Egyptian ancestor.. the sheer will to be able to do something like this is incredible, him being able to resist marik's mind control was not a feat against marik, it was a feat for jounouchi's will power. and the shadow duels.. well a thunder attack? that wasn't supposed to kill bud, a trauma prison for mai? she just had to surpass it, which is what shit did.. with jounouchi well they weren't dueling for their lives like with bakura and yugi, it was a shadow game alright but the only kick is that they felt everythng their monsters felt. so no, I do not think it was his fault his powers just came out like that. however I liked the video, good analysis mate
What about Siegfried...?
Personally I love Marik, I love my ancient crazies, Bakura was probably the scariest, but that was because he was smart and controlled, Marik would just torture you for the lolz.