Kazuki Takahashi, writer, illustrator and designer of Yu-Gi-Oh!, was found dead yesterday having died aged sixty while snorkeling off the coast of Japan a couple of days ago.  Yu-Gi-Oh! (which translates as “King of Games”) is a Japanese manga series that spawned an anime series, video games and a very popular collectable card game.  The plot centres around Yugi Mutou, a bullied boy who solves the ancient Millennium Puzzle and as a result awakens his gambling alter-ego.  Thereafter, whenever threatened the alter-ego challenges them to dangerous Shadow Games which reveals their true nature.

– Image from dicebreaker.com

In Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, players start with 8,000 Life Points and summon monsters (by playing cards), sacrificing weaker monsters in favour of stronger ones.  Players lose if they run out of Life Points or cards, or if their opponent plays a combination of cards which trigger automatic victory.  In 2011, Yu-Gi-Oh! took the Guinness World Record as the highest selling trading card game with over twenty-five billion cards sold.  This had increased to thirty-five billion as of January last year, with total sales worth nearly ten billion dollars.

– Image from yugioh.fandom.com