#im skimming over a lot of the details but that's abt the gist of it

[rabbityshen]

so i think most ppl dont know at least like, if you didnt live in japan and were a kid who grew up watching the dub and didnt have easy access to the manga. (and im talking abt ygo duel monsters here) (edit: by this i mean, there was a dub for all of ygo:dm but most ppl i know watched most of s1-3 as kids and then there's a major decline in popularity with s4-5.)

basically the last half of season 5 adapts the final arc of the manga which is all about the backstory of atem (the puzzle spirit), yami bakura (evil ring spirit), the millennium items in general, and just kind of...all of the ancient egypt stuff.

what's revealed is that atem's uncle, a high priest and advisor to atem's dad, carried out the massacre of an entire village in order for the millennium items to be created.* thief king bakura (the human that yami bakura used to be) was the only survivor (and was a very young kid at the time) and so he's seeking revenge against the monarchy.

he's still mega evil and later one of atem's retainers is like "well that whole village was completely full of evil people, like thieves and etc" even tho they def killed. kids. atem is horrified at this revelation and is kind of mad at his dad but that's it. thief king bakura ends up summoning/being possessed (?? it's v confusing) by The Evilest Monster that they have to defeat, so it just ends up being "wow this genocide survivor rly was the evilest guy after all"

*the show tries to kind of distance responsibility from atem's dad, and therefore atem, and is like "well atem's dad didnt know abt the genocide details" but it's like. you were the ruling monarch here