Yūya Sakaki

"Swing, Pendulum of the Soul! Draw an arc of light across the ether!"

- Yūya Sakaki

Yūya Sakaki ( Sakaki Yūya) is the main protagonist of the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime. He has a childhood friend named Yuzu Hīragi. He wears a blue pendant as his good-luck charm that can change cards into Pendulum Monsters.

Appearance
Yūya appears as an average boy. He has hair that is maroon, following with green on top of it. He wears dark-ish yellow goggles that a blue star on the right-eyed lens and wears it on his head that he uses to cover his eyes when he's sad or about to get tears in his eyes. His eyes are red, but not too much though. He wears a neck belt. He has a blue pendant around his neck. He wears a jacket which is his Maiami Second Junior High School uniform, that he wears it as a cape. He wears pants of his choice that are green with two pockets on both right and left sides. He also wears a brown belt. He wears pink shoes. He wears red wristbands, one on each wrist. His skin color bright and normal. Yūya and The Black Duelist share a lot similar appearances/faces.

Personality
Yūya is a nice person with a entertaining personality. Yūya is a student learning to become an "Entertainment Duelist", so he loves to entertain people. Even though he is kind of on the short side, he is very tough and can be good in Action Duels. He rather acts silly at times, but when he is in a bad situation, he thinks of what his father told him and gets serious at dueling and much better at duels. He also becomes very entertaining during duels, like asking his friends what would be the results of his actions if he does something in a duel and stuff relating to that, more like confirming things he already knows and performing like a entertainer. He once talked bad about his father when his friends told him to follow his steps, but his Yōko Sakaki told his friends that what he really want to be was to be like his father, a "Entertainment Duelist", Yūshō Sakaki.

Etymology
The syllable "Yū" in this character's name comes from the "Yū" in the Rōmaji of "Yu-Gi-Oh!" ( Yūgiō, lit. King of Game) and past 4 main characters' first or last names of the series (Note: There are other ways to write "Yūya" in Japanese). Sakaki (榊), also known as Cleyera japonica, means "Divine Tree" in Japanese.

History
Yūya is a student learning to become an "Entertainment Duelist", a type of professional Duelist. So his dream is to become an “Entertainment Duelist" and give people smiles from his Duels. Yūya goes to You Show Duel School in Maiami City with his friend, Yuzu Hīragi and attends Maiami Second Junior High School as his regular school. One day, he gets himself involved and is to Duel with the current Pro Duelist champion, Strong Ishijima. When he was concerned in his duel with Ishijima, he finds/creates the Pendulum Monsters as his pendant was shined. Changing his ace, "Odd-Eyes Dragon" into a Pendulum Monster, now called "Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon". In order to beat, he sets his Pendulum Scales using "Majutsushi of Astromancy" (1) and "Majutsushi of Chronomancy" (8) and Pendulum Summons for the first time. After defeating Ishijima, he becomes a well-known duelist. After returning to You Show, a lot of people where gathered to see Yūya's never-seen-before Pendulum Summon. Although, Yūya didn't Pendulum Summon in his duel against Yuzu as he only found Pendulum Summoning and thus doesn't fully know the rules to do so. This made people angry, so they left. But Yūya, who didn't give up, says he will learn Pendulum Summon.

Duels
In episode 8, Yūya's information shows he has dueled 46 times.

Trivia

 * Yūya's hair is made a joke out of, because it's green on the top and brown/red color on the bottom, making it looks like a tomato head.
 * Yūya's voice actor is Kenshō Ono, who's also the voice actor of famous series known as Kuroko no Basuke (lit. Basketball of Kuroko) character, called "Tetsuya Kuroko". Both Yūya and Tetsuya sound like close names due to ending with "ya" and both are main characters of their anime. Both have 3 Japanese syllables in their names (Yu + u + ya = Yūya, Te + tsu + ya = Tetsuya).