A fair concession to pretty much all of my readers this week, you’ve likely never heard of manga artist Kazuki Takahashi.

Takahashi was the creator of the “Yu-Gi-Oh!” franchise, which began as a manga in the late 1990s and quickly grew into a worldwide phenomenon with a popular anime series, video games and trading card game that rivals the popularity of fellow global hit from Japan, Pokemon.

Sadly, Takahashi was found dead at sea off the coast of Nago in Okinawa, Japan, on July 6 in an apparent snorkeling accident. An autopsy report by the Japanese Coast Guard confirmed he died by drowning. He was 60.

Some of my fondest memories as a early teen involved watching the “Yu-Gi-Oh” anime, the story of a boy named Yugi Muto who solves a puzzle that inhabits the soul of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh and ends up becoming the greatest player in the world of a children’s card game called Duel Monsters, which for lack of a better explanation, is similar to “Magic: The Gathering” (Please don’t sue me, Wizards of the Coast, I know they’re not the same thing).

Unlike the Pokemon trading card game where most kids my age were just collecting the cards with the pretty art, “Yu-Gi-Oh!” started out as a game that people were actually able to understand and play (and the art on the cards was also fantastic). The rules were simple in the beginning, although the introduction of several new gimmicks and thousands of new cards over the last two decades have made it a much more complex game to master, with tournaments at the local, regional, national and world levels.

But with the release of “Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel” on most gaming platforms earlier this year, fans can go and not only relive those memories from when they were young (or old, I knew plenty of adult players, too. We don’t judge), they can even try and pick up and learn about all the new cards that have made their way into the game without having to spend a small fortune on cards.

And while I haven’t played the card game in years, I still have most of my old cards and take them out every once in a while to peruse through a world of memories from when times were simpler.

Josh Frantz, if you’re reading this somehow, I still have the five Exodia cards you traded me years ago in middle school from the original booster set, “Legend of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.” They’re, to this day, some of my most cherished possessions, whether you and I got along as kids or not.

And then there’s my crew of friends in the Buffalo area, who until as far back as a couple of years ago would still get together frequently to throw down cards, and drinks, in what we affectionately referred to as “the shadow duels.”

All those memories, a world of memories, good times and friends. That’s the legacy Takahashi left behind for the world, despite his tragic death.

Programming note

No column next week, per usual, but a heads up that readers won’t hear from me again until the Aug. 6-7 edition of the Mirror, as I will be taking my annual vacation during the final week of the month.

My destination? Well, nowhere, really. Just a big comfy chair in my living room — to take me on a long-awaited journey with Fromm Software to The Lands Between. I hope you look forward to it.

Dan Isenberg is a copy editor who writes regularly on gaming, tech, fantasy, science fiction and other nerd culture topics for the Mirror. He can be reached at disenberg@altoonamirror.com or on Twitter @TheseDanTweets.