Mai Kujaku (manga)

Mai Kujaku is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. This is the original depiction of Mai Kujaku, known as Mai Valentine in most English media, as created by Kazuki Takahashi.

Spending most of her life alone, Mai became an independent Duelist and was naturally distrusting to others. She showed no shame in manipulating men, who displayed foolish infatuation towards her and previously used her "Aroma Tactics" to easily beat them in card games. She Duels for pride and monetary gain, but also entered the Duelist Kingdom tournament to find the things she used to cherish. After meeting Katsuya Jonouchi and Yugi Mutou, she started to open up and become friendly towards other people.

Mai participated in the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City tournaments, making it to the semi and quarter finals respectively. She used a "Harpy Lady" Deck at first and added "Amazoness" cards for Battle City.

Casino dealer
Mai spent most of her life alone. She once worked as a casino dealer on a cruise ship. She traveled around the world playing card games with rich people every day. She met a lot of men, whom she described as boring, who would flash their money to get with her. Mai got them to put down a lot of their money and then easily beat them in cards using her Aroma Tactics; a strategy in which she would scent her cards with different perfume allowing her to know what they are without looking. Although she made a lot of money doing this, it caused her to hate people more until she got sick of her job and quit.

Duelist Kingdom
Mai was invited to the Duelist Kingdom tournament. She entered hoping to win the prize money, which she considered using to travel the world or live in Paris and buy all the cosmetics that she wanted, but also entered in the hope of finding the things that she once cherished.

Mai went to Domino Pier to get the boat to the Duelist Kingdom island. Seeing the other competitors, she laughed that it was like a pep rally for kids and she had not seen any real competition yet. However she soon spotted Yugi Mutou, whom she knew had defeated Seto Kaiba. She was surprised that someone like Yugi could beat Kaiba and teased him for being a little kid, which infuriated Anzu Mazaki. She showed no interest in Katsuya Jonouchi and Hiroto Honda, who sought her attention, telling her that they were friends of Yugi. She warned the boys that it did not matter in a Duel if her opponent was a little kid as any man who stepped in her way would get crushed.

On the boat, Mai complained to an official about having to sleep on the common room floor with the other contestants. She was interrupted by Dinosaur Ryuzaki, the runner-up of the Japanese nationals who had been given his own room. Ryuzaki offered to share his room with her and Mai saw an opportunity. She acted all giddy and pretended to be fond of Ryuzaki. Inside his room, she said that she liked strong men, as long as they were stronger than her and challenged him to a game of Duel Monsters. If he won, she said that she would do whatever he wanted all night long, while if she won she would get the room to herself. She threw off his concentration using her Aroma Tactics and easily won, after which she kicked him out of the room.

Deck
During the Duelist Kingdom tournament, Mai used a "Harpy Lady" Deck. It mainly focused on Summoning her "Harpy Lady", accessorizing it with various Spell Cards to make it more beautiful and powerful, and multiplying it with "Kaleidoscope".

During Battle City, she used an "Amazoness" Deck, but still included some of her "Harpy Lady" cards.