Alexis Rhodes

Alexis Rhodes, known as Asuka Tenjouin in the Japanese version, is a strong female duelist from the Obelisk Blue dormitory at Duel Academy as well as one of Jaden's closest friends.

Her family name has been written as "Tenjoin," "Tenjouin," and "Tenjyoin" in Roman characters. Her given name in the Japanese version means "Tomorrow's Fragrance", and she is called "Tomorrow Girl" by Jim Crocodile Cook.

Design


Alexis' character design was overseen by Kenichi Hara. Her usual outfit consists of the standard female Obelisk Blue uniform, complete with an optional pair of fingerless gloves. Her blonde hair is sporadically arranged, with a large portion trailing the upper part of the nape of her neck. She carries an Academy-issued Duel Disk on her left arm. During her senior year, she carries a duel disk with Blue trim representing the female dorm on her left arm.

Biography
Alexis Rhodes, along with Zane Truesdale and Chazz Princeton, is one of the top students at the Academy. She is regarded as the "Madonna" and Queen of Obelisk Blue, yet she does not follow the crowd nor does she regard herself as better than other people like many of her Obelisk peers.

Alexis mourns for her long-lost older brother, Atticus. With the help of Zane, she constantly searches for clues surrounding his disappearance, until it is revealed that he was brainwashed and joined the Shadow Riders, under the control of Nightshroud. Defeated by Jaden Yuki in a shadow duel and relieved of this persona, the incident leaves Atticus amnesic, prompting his sister to engage in a duel with a Shadow Rider, Titan, to restore his memories. Ultimately, Alexis won and her brother got his memories back.

Later in the series, Chazz comes out about his infatuation with Alexis after Jaden defeats the final Shadow Rider. Atticus helps Chazz with his crush and he steals all seven spirit keys in order to force Alexis to duel with him. Although Chazz plays suggestive cards such as "Hidden Wish" and "Love Letter" to show her how much he cares, Alexis wins in the end, stating that she cannot return his feelings, because she's "in love with dueling". In this duel Alexis introduces her "Cyber Angel" series. Chazz's crush on Alexis continues throughout the series, although after having his free will sapped by Sartorius, his interests fade, until he is rescued by Jaden and returned to his former self.

Following Chazz's brainwashment by Sartorious into The Society of Light, Alexis duels with him to keep him from taking over Obelisk Blue completely. She fails, however, and meets the same fate as her fellow elites.

Although she remains brainwashed by Sartorious for the majority of the season, she finally begins to show some resistance by refusing to play the White Veil card given to her by Sartorious during her duel against Maitre D' in the GX tournament. Additionally, she vaguely begins to remember the times when she and Jaden were friends when Sartorious orders her to duel Jaden for his satellite key. However, Sartorious notices this and thus strips Alexis of her mind completely, rendering her a lifeless and empty puppet.

During her duel with Jaden to get the key for Sartorious, Jaden tries to break Sartorious' control on her and remind her of their friendship by playing cards that Chazz and Atticus would often use (Swing of Memories and Ojama Yellow). However, she does not listen to anything Jaden tries convincing her of because her mind was completely stripped by Sartorious, thus completely stripping her memories as well. Jaden still manages to win which restores her mind back to normal. Upon being returned, she has no memory of ever entering the Society of Light or being brainwashed but notices that she and Jaden were in a duel. She asks Jaden who won and Jaden lies saying she did, most likely because Jaden felt bad for her after all she had been through.

In the third season, Alexis accompanies Jaden and company through the Survival Duels, the desert, and finally the alternative dimension where she is sacrificed among with the rest of the gang, except for Syrus Truesdale, by Brron. She is later discovered to be alive, and held prisoner with everyone else who was sacrificed by Brron in the Duel Spirit world in an alternate dimension by Yubel. When Jaden and Yubel's souls fused, she was returned to Duel Academy by Jaden.

During the fourth season, Alexis finds Jaden's new and more serious personality to be troubling and alienated, especially when he tried getting information from Atticus. She ridiculed him for his actions when she saw him duel with Atticus while Atticus was wearing his Shadow Charm, until she found that the duel was his idea and not Jaden's (which still shocked her). Also during the fourth season, Alexis seems to have hidden feelings towards Jaden. These, however, are overshadowed by her frustration with his strongarm tactics and neglecting her during the pair duels. Despite this, she and Jaden ended up in the finals, facing Blair Flannigan and Tyranno Hassleberry. Later, Alexis and Jaden are able to work together and win the double duel tournament. Alexis then makes the decision to leave Duel Academy to study abroad. Alexis' decision was based on Jaden's influence. During her conversation with Jaden after she made her decision, Alexis strongly displays romantic feelings for Jaden, but doesn't outright confess them, nor does Jaden appear to return them.

Though it was thought she left Duel Academy after episode 162, she actually stays until the end of the year. She is then defeated in a offscreen duel by a swarm of Truemen and brought into the World of Darkness. While in the World of Darkness, Alexis is trapped in a dream sequence illustrating the fear and doubt she has for her future, and envisions her possible future as a Duel Monsters teacher at Duel Academy, but her students have little to no trust in her ability to teach them what they need to become duelists with skills worth taking seriously, and even mock her. It's when she finally gives in to their mocking and believes that she actually doesn't have what it takes to be an outstanding teacher that she completely dissolves into the World of Darkness. However, after Jaden cries out and reaches everyone trapped in the World of Darkness, she is saved along with many others from Nightshroud's world.

At the Graduation Ceremony, she gave a heart warming speech at Graduation about how no matter how tough something is, we can always overcome it with friends by our side. During the party, she, Jesse, and Axel have a conversation outside, confident that they will see Jaden again.

Manga
Alexis' manga-counterpart is the same as her anime-counterpart in terms of ranking, strength, and motivation. She longs to be viewed as a duelist by her fellow peers, rather than simply a female, and goes out of her way to take Seika Kohinata's place in a duel against Jaden. Though she loses, she still becomes Miss Duel Academia, as Seika withdraws from the competition, feeling unable to accept the title after seeing how much acclaim Alexis won for her duel. Alexis participates in the tournament hosted at Duel Academy. She fights Reggie MacKenzie in the preliminaries and loses. She later duels David Rabb in the finals; while she is frustrated by the loss, she sees it as an opportunity to motivate herself to become a better duelist.

She and Bastion Misawa battle Jesse Andersen and Adrian Gecko in a tag duel. They manage to win, much to Adrian's annoyance.

Voice/Mannerisms
Alexis is generally very confident, brave and strong willed. She has many times put herself in danger to help her friends. She does have strong confidence in her dueling skills, but she does not act vain about it unlike Chazz and Aster, and sometimes Jaden. Alexis also tends to act more quiet and reserved than Jaden's other friends. Despite all the unfortunate circumstances that happen to her throughout the show (such as being kidnapped and losing her soul to Titan, being brainwashed into the Society of Light, being lost in Titan's darkness and nearly drowning after getting kidnapped by Viper) she continues to stay alongside Jaden and the others in defeating sinister forces.

After Alexis lost her duel to Chazz and was brainwashed into joining the Society of Light, her personality changed dramatically. She became extremely rude and insulting towards Jaden and the others, also becoming very arrogant.

Many fans believe that Alexis has a crush on Jaden. This is truer of the English version; in the original, Asuka does not entertain romantic interest towards anyone, which leads to her brother's repeated attempts to get her to notice someone. But in season 4, it is revealed that Alexis does have secret feelings for Jaden. This starts in episode 161 when she's seen thinking about him, and more strongly indicated in the next episode on two accessions. The first is when she's clearly frustrated with Jaden getting along with Blair during the pair duel, and later after she tells him about her decision based on his influence; she just says she was glad she met him, but has a lot of trouble assembling her words, and blushes while she's speaking.

In the dub, Alexis' affections toward Jaden can be traced as early on as episode 3. Her dormmate, Jasmine wondered if Alexis was "falling for that Slifer", the "Slifer" being referred to as Jaden. Alexis consistently will respond to another female showing interest in Jaden. For example, in episode 106 when Blair give Jaden a flirty wink, she is clearly not pleased. Similarly, in dubbed episode 37, Chazz remarks that Tania might be Jaden's "type" after all. Alexis then vehemently denies this, retorting, "...no way Jaden would ever date that thing". The notion is furthered when Jaden and Syrus duel the Paradox Brothers. Alexis tells Bastion that she "is happy that Jaden gets to stay at the Academy." Bastion corrects her by assuming that she meant Jaden and Syrus, and presumably figures out that Alexis has a crush on Jaden when Alexis tries to change the subject. A similar situation also ensues when Mindy, Alexis' good friend and roommate, exclaims that she would never let a Slifer Red stay on campus. In episode 15, things take a turn when Harrington challenges Jaden to a duel with the prize of being Alexis' fiancé. Despite Jaden winning the duel, his naiveté allows Alexis to downplay the role to one of friendship in the English version, stating, "...it means friendship, at least for now, big guy."; in the Japanese version, Asuka instead calls Judai an idiot for not knowing the definition of the word "fiancé". Another example of Alexis' affection towards Jaden is in episode 42 after Jaden wins against the Dark Magician Girl. Everyone else is mad at Jaden for winning and Jaden says "It's not easy being the bad guy." Alexis then replies "Aw, sometimes the girls like the bad guys," but then quickly tries to cover it up. In addition, after Jaden nearly gets "sent to the stars" after his duel with a duel monster spirit in the alternate dimension, Alexis later confronts him personally and is mad at him for unnecessarily putting himself at risk of dying. However, while Alexis is controlled by Sartorius she shows a great deal of dislike for Jaden, referring to him as a "dork" and "loser" multiple times.

In the manga, Alexis doesn't display any particular romantic feelings for Jaden, but is the object of Bastion Misawa's affections. Throughout the manga, Bastion shows a lot of interest in Alexis, becoming extremely fidgety and often nervous when she is around. He is noted as being shy with Alexis, and lacks the courage to ask her for her cell phone number. Alexis is also possibly more flirtatious in the manga, since Syrus Truesdale is quoted as calling her a "siren."

Alexis also has a minor rivalry with Seika Kohinata, a third year Obelisk Blue student, since the two are participants for the "Miss Duel Academia" contest, and later, the Duel Academia Tournament.

Deck
Alexis plays a "Cyber Girl" Deck including female monsters based on dance related sports. She later upgrades this to include the "Cyber Angel" series.

When she joined the Society of Light, she used a "White Night" Deck.

In the manga, Alexis uses an ice-themed Deck, based on the distribution of Ice Counters.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller she uses a Dancing Blade deck.