Early YGO

Yu-Gi-Oh! (遊☆戯☆王 means King of Games in Japanese) first began as a manga serialized by Weekly Shonen Jump from September 14, 1996 to March 8, 2004. It told the story of Yugi Mutou (武藤（むとう）遊戯（ゆうぎ） Mutō Yūgi) who loved games but was bullied at his school. One night, Yugi completed the mysterious and supposedly unsolvable Millennium Puzzle (千（せん）年（ねん）錐（すい） or 千（せん）年（ねん）パッズルSennen Sui or Sennen Pazzuru). In the process, he would become host to an amnesiac spirit known as Dark Yugi that would appear whenever Yugi or his friends were threatened. Eventually, Dark Yugi's origins as the Nameless Pharaoh are discovered and his friends attempt to help him discover who he actually was.

For over a year, the manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump. Then, sometime in late 1997 and early 1998, Toei Animation received the rights to create an anime version of the manga that fans call Season Zero, though they aren't the same series. It ran from April 4, 1998 to October 10, 1998. Also in 1998, BANDAI

 received the rights to create a card game based around the game Magic and Wizards (マジック＆（アンド）ウィザーズ or Ｍ＆Ｗ（マジックアンドウィザーズ）, Majikku ando Wizāzu) played in the manga. It would be Toei though that would give the game and the following era the name it's still known by to this day: Duel Monsters (デュエル モンスターズ, Dyueru Monsutāzu).

The release of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Bandai's Official Card Game coincided with the release of the first anime on April 4th, 1998 with the release of Yu-Gi-Oh! Bandai OCG: 1st Generation and the first set of promotional cards: (Mirror Force, Swords of Revealing Light, and Gate Guardian). Exactly three months later on the 4th of July saw the release of Yu-Gi-Oh! Bandai OCG: 2nd Generation. Finally, Yu-Gi-Oh! Bandai OCG: 3rd Generation and the Second Set (Wicked Chain and Blue-Eyes White Dragon's 3-Body Connection) were released on October 10, 1998. On that same day, Season Zero's final episode also aired. 

Bandai's attempts at selling Yu-Gi-Oh! material continued into 1999 with Yu-Gi-Oh! Bandai Sealdass on January 20th. These were sealed sticker that were meant more for collecting than for actual use in the card game. Because by this point, a new company had taken over the exclusive use of producing a Yu-Gi-Oh! card game.

That company's name was KONAMI.

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