Short answers, pulled from the story.
Yu-Gi-Oh! was written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It was first serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump beginning on the 17th of September 1996 and ran until the 8th of March 2004, filling 38 collected volumes.
Yu-Gi-Oh! follows Yugi Mutou, a timid high schooler who solves an ancient Egyptian artifact called the Millennium Puzzle, awakening the spirit of a nameless Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt sealed inside it. The spirit possesses Yugi during conflicts and challenges antagonists to games, while Yugi and his friends work to recover the Pharaoh's lost memories. Later arcs center on the collectible card game Duel Monsters.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game is estimated to have sold approximately 35 billion cards worldwide. In 2011, Guinness World Records named it the best-selling trading card game in history. The game was first launched in Japan in 1999 by Konami.
By July 2022, the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga had over 40 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. The franchise as a whole generated five billion dollars in retail sales.
Two anime adaptations of the original manga were produced: a 27-episode series by Toei Animation that aired in 1998, and Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, which ran for 224 episodes on TV Tokyo from 2000 to 2004. Seven spin-off series followed, the most recent being Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!!, which aired until March 2025.
Takahashi wanted to create a battle manga where the main character never hits anyone, but struggled with that limitation until the concept of games provided the solution. He was personally obsessed with games from childhood and saw the game player as a kind of hero, using that idea as the premise for Yugi's character.