Complex sentence: Kazuki Takahashi, the author of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", deemed their situation as purely platonic, although even in the original manga, he dropped some rather strong hints that Mai actually does harbor deeper feelings for him.
Split into simpler sentences: Kazuki Takahashi, the author of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", deemed their situation as purely platonic. Although even in the original manga, he dropped some rather strong hints that Mai actually does harbor deeper feelings for him.