Rebecca Hawkins

Rebecca Hawkins, known as Rebecca Hopkins in the Japanese version, is a character in the second anime series Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Rebecca is, in the original Japanese version, the American Duel Monsters champion. In the English anime, she is the Intercontinental Champion. Rebecca is also the granddaughter of Arthur Hawkins (Arthur Hopkins in the original Japanese). She is 12 years old in the original Japanese anime. In the English anime, she is 8.

She is voiced by Kaori Tagami in the Japanese version and Kerry Williams in the English.

Biography
Rebecca is the granddaughter of Arthur Hawkins, an old friend of Yugi Muto's grandfather, Solomon Muto. Rebecca encounters Yugi as Yugi returns from Duelist Kingdom. She accuses Solomon of stealing her grandfather's prized Blue-Eyes White Dragon and demanded he duel her for it, when asked about how she knew that Solomon "stole" the card, she replies that Keith Howard told her, although it can be presumed that Keith merely lied to her out of annoyance, indicating that she tried forcing the information out of him. As he was recently discharged from the hospital, Solomon cannot duel, so Yugi duels Rebecca in his place.

While they duel, Solomon recounts of how he met Arthur, an archaeologist who believes that the ancient Egyptians played an ancient form of Duel Monsters. Arthur's colleagues laughed at his strange ideas, and he set out on an expedition with Solomon to find proof. They were trapped when a tomb caved in, and as there were only enough supplies for one person to live, they dueled for them. Now, Yugi and Rebecca are fighting, card for card, the very same duel, and Solomon claims he knows how it will end.

Rebecca discards various monsters to her graveyard to power up her Shadow Ghoul monster, and Yugi concedes defeat. Rebecca demands the card, but Solomon reveals it was destroyed. An angry Rebecca yells at Solomon (unaware that it was really Seto Kaiba that destroyed it) until Arthur arrives, telling her to behave. He shows Rebecca the card Yugi had drawn, and it is a card that would have weakened her Shadow Ghoul for Yugi to destroy and win. (The card was Soul Release, which would've allowed Yugi to remove 5 monsters from her Graveyard, which would've weakened the Shadow Ghoul just enough for Yugi's Dark Magician to wipe it out.) Yugi admits he surrendered on purpose, just as his grandfather did to let Arthur take the last of the water that they had. When they were rescued, Arthur was so grateful he gave his Blue-Eyes card to Solomon. After learning about the story, Rebecca quickly apologizes. Yugi gives Rebecca his The Ties of Friendship as a reminder of this lesson, which she keeps ever since.



She and her grandfather return in the Orichalcos arc to help Yugi fight Dartz. Here Rebecca is noticeably older and wearing glasses (to the point that everyone barely recognizes her) and is also in college, much to everyone's shock. When Tristan expressed his skepticism of a world where Duel Monsters are real (despite remembering all the adventures and experiences they had previously), and calls Arthur a "nutty Professor", Rebecca gives him a kick in the shins and replies with (after Tristan says that hurts), "Good, because that's my grandfather you're talking about!"

She helps by researching Dartz's Three Swordsmen and hacking into Kaiba Corporation's computer system to track others via their Duel Disks. She also seems to be slaving under the delusion that Yugi is her boyfriend (her "darling" in the Japanese version, a reference to Urusei Yatsura), something which makes Téa Gardner jealous. This doesn't seem to be a pretend crush as she is devastated when Yugi's soul was taken and tried to defeat Valon in vengeance, showing she has true feelings for Yugi.

Rebecca also takes part in the KC Grand Championship, where she duels Abe the Monkey Man and Vivian Wong. She loses to Leon von Schroeder in the semi-finals and spends the rest of the tournament cheering from the sidelines. She is absent after the tournament ends, telling Yugi that she will duel him one day and telling Téa (with a coy look) that she will miss her.

In the Japanese version of the final episode, Rebecca makes her final appearance by hugging Yugi at the airport while Anzu glares at the scene; the scene does not exist in the English-language version of the episode. This scene is placed in the final episode of the Kaiba Corp Grand Championship.

Deck
Rebecca's first Deck is a Shadow Ghoul Deck, focusing on sending cards to the Graveyard to power up her Shadow Ghoul, through the effects of cards such as "Cannon Soldier" and "Tribute to the Doomed."

Her second deck is a Anti-Cure/Dragon Deck, which focuses on summoning her strongest monsters "Guardian Angel Joan" and "Diamond Head Dragon" while using cards to replenish her Life Points which causes "Fire Princess" to inflict "burn damage" to her opponent's Life Points. This deck was used in Waking the Dragons arc as well as the Grand Championship. This theme is also seen in Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour, though without Dragon support.