Name
Kyouka Yutaka

Age
15

Appearance


Personality
Kyouka Yutaka is a loser. The fact he takes pride in his ability to keep laughing under the worst circumstances is a testament to both his resilience and his loss record. The latter has just as much to do with his bad habit of challenging opponents far above his weight class as it does the personal weakness he's trying to overcome. To him, every challenge that ends with his loss is an opportunity to test his limits and examine his deficiencies, but by no means does this mean he's okay with losing. It is true that Yutaka is more familiar with failing than anyone, but there is nobody who hates failing more than he does. Every loss fuels the flame, and like a starving animal, he keeps desperately straining himself just for the chance to sink his fangs into his target.

On an interpersonal level, Yutaka seems to be a difficult person to deal with. Many of his superficial traits do not do any favors either; he is irreverent, rebellious, and ruthlessly straightforward. His Devil-may-care attitude can be grating and he has a bad habit of dying on hills he doesn't need to. However if you can accept those qualities, he's actually quite easy to get along with, as nebulous as that sounds. More than anything, don't look down on yourself or others, and especially don't look down on him--an irony considering that he's always looking down on himself on some level.

Yutaka's hobbies are reading weekly manga releases and watching conspiracy theory videos late at night. His favorite foods are hamburger steak and kitsune udon, and his least favorite food is cup ramen. His dream is to become the King of Games(?).

History
If you were to ask him, Yutaka would tell you the only thing exceptional about his family was their bad luck. Then he would laugh and probably make a joke about how the first thing he ever did was disappoint his parents. And what he would say is not necessarily incorrect. There was nothing exceptional about the Kyouka Family at the time of Yutaka's birth, not their house, not their jobs, and especially not their circumstances. Perhaps it is because of this unexceptional life that they desired an exceptional child so fervently. Unfortunately for them, their first child was Yutaka whose only exceptional trait was his thirst for strength.

For as long as he could remember, he always been living under pressure. He was pushed from a young age to succeed, because that was where his worth supposedly lay. When it became evident that effort alone wouldn't be enough, he started throwing himself into various activities in a misguided attempt to discover any latent ability. As it became clear that he possessed no talent for anything, his parents' gaze began turning every so slightly away from him, which came to its logical conclusion once it was apparent that his annoying little sister was everything they were looking for.

But rather than give up on himself once they gave up on him, their rejection only made him more motivated to succeed. Not for their sake, but for his own. One could say that Yutaka was even more unreasonable than his parents in this regard. He would constantly seek out the top students in arts, academics and athletics, and challenge them in their specialties over and over, losing all the while. And when the school finally got sick of him, he would go out to other schools and challenge their exemplars instead.

Predictably, Yutaka would get into a lot of trouble with students, staff and parents alike. Eventually his poor reputation, performance and attitude led to him being called a delinquent, a title he eventually embraced. His school life was friendless for the most part, and full of derision from all angles. "Just give up" became the chorus of his adolescence, not that it meant much to someone as obsessed as him.

He was formally introduced to Duel Monsters in the summer after his first year of junior high school. Although he knew of the game previously, he had no cards and no money. And even if he did, nobody was interested in teaching him in the first place. But due to constantly loitering on the premises and injecting tournaments full of old people with his "youthly vigor", he became well-acquainted with Zenkichi Seigen and Chiyo, the couple who owned a local gaming shop. Through them, he met their son, Zenkichi Mitsuyo, a C-list turbo dueling celebrity. He was the one who taught Yutaka how to duel, and the one who gave him a job fixing Duel Runners so he could buy cards of his own¹.

Regardless, Yutaka didn't really consider Duel Monsters anything more than just another game until after he gave Kyouka Tsugumi, his annoying little sister, a box of cards for her birthday, hoping to introduce her to something he could beat her at. Instead, what he introduced her to was something that she was truly passionate about. She would challenge him daily, and since it was about the only thing they had in common, these duels deepened their sibling bond. One could even say they were friendly with each other... as long as it was on the duel field.

Unfortunately, much like many of Yutaka's efforts, something went wrong. When Tsugumi eventually became open about her dream of becoming the next King of Games, they shut her down almost immediately. They gave her a thorough tongue-lashing about why her dream was unstable, unreasonable, and unachievable. They even took shots at Yutaka himself, essentially blaming him for the entire situation. And if breaking his sister’s spirit wasn’t enough, they tried to get rid of all her cards too.

It was in the wake of this incident that Kyouka Yutaka, frustrated, enraged and holding a handful of salvaged cards, made a promise to his heartbroken little sister.

"Since you can't be King of Games anymore, I'll just do it instead. So quit crying and leave that dream to me."



_{¹It only later occurred to Yutaka that (1) this was definitely illegal according to Japanese labor laws, and (2) that he was being grossly underpaid. But that's a story for another time.}