Katsuya Jonouchi (manga)

Katsuya Jonouchi is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. This is the original depiction of Katsuya Jonouchi, known as Joey Wheeler in most English media, as created by Kazuki Takahashi.

Jonouchi is the best friend of Yugi Mutou and Hiroto Honda. He suffered a poor upbringing with his parents divorcing and him living with his alcoholic father, while his sister Shizuka lived with their mother. Jonouchi used to be a thug and even hung out with Hirutani's gang for a while. After becoming friends with Yugi he became more righteous and would do anything to protect his friends or innocent people being taken advantage of.

Jonouchi starts out as a weak player after taking-up Duel Monsters, but becomes more powerful as he learns from Yugi and Dark Yugi and fights to protect people he loves.

Early life
Jonouchi and his sister, Shizuka, were separated when their parents divorced when he was 10. Shizuka was brought by her mother while Jonouchi lived with his father.

Jonouchi became a street thug and hung out in Hirutani's gang for long periods of time when he was in middle school. He often got into fights and developed great fighting skills. He also hung out with Hiroto Honda, who was not in Hirutani's gang.

Jonouchi lived in poverty, due to his father's gambling addictions and alcoholism. Jonouchi went to great lengths to repay his father's debts, such as working at multiple jobs. He was the "lone paperboy" in middle school, meaning that he was one of the few that were permitted to work while going to school.

Ushio
Jonouchi along with Honda used to bully Yugi at school. Jonouchi was annoyed at how Yugi would let himself get pushed around and claimed his bullying was teaching Yugi how to be a man and even offered Yugi to punch him back, although Yugi hates violence. After he and Honda swiped the box containing the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle, Jonouchi was told off by Anzu and left the room, but managed to secretly take a piece of the puzzle beforehand.

In the hallway, Jonouchi said he was sickened by how Yugi was obsessing over a puzzle and how Anzu had called them bullies. They then bumped into Ushio, who asked what they were saying about bullying. Jonouchi tried telling Ushio to stay out of it, but was restrained by Honda and insisted it was nothing. After explained how influential and powerful Ushio was, Jonouchi vowed to get back at Ushio. He then showed Honda the piece of the puzzle he had taken and threw it into the school pool.

The next day, Ushio beat-up Honda and Jonouchi under the suspicion that they were bullying Yugi. Yugi tried to stop Ushio, saying they were teaching him how to be a man, not bullying him. That resulted in Yugi also being beaten-up. Jonouchi was inspired by how Yugi had tried to help him and came to care for Yugi. Later that day, he retrieved the piece of the puzzle from the pool and gave it to Yugi's grandfather, to give to Yugi. The next day at school, Jonouchi answered Yugi's riddle, "something you can show, but can't see", saying that it's friendship and he is Yugi's friend.

ZTV
When Jonouchi saw a ZTV van outside their school, he began to spread rumors about there being a star at their school. He suspected that they were disguised as a student and planned on unmasking them to make a fortune. However Yugi was skeptical of there being a star, so Jonouchi left him to find that star by himself. Later he spotted Yugi being beaten by Fujita. He quickly broke up the fight and found out that it was a staged bullying scene for a documentary, Caught on Camera: School Violence. When he confronted the director, the director reminded him that he was being filmed, so Jonouchi was reluctant to attack. However the director attacked Jonouchi when he told the cameramen to stop filming.

Later having looked into it, Jonouchi admitted that there was no star at the school, which Yugi was surprised he hadn't given up on until now. Jonouchi instead vowed to become the star of the school himself. He noticed something was bothering Yugi, who hadn't told him he was being forced to sell tickets to Sozoji's concert. Yugi insisted that he was fine. Jonouchi and Honda then proceeded to lift up Anzu's skirt using a t-square, earning him a punch in the face.

Prisoner 777
Jonouchi noticed how Anzu was acting odd, after avoiding walking home with them a few days and discouraging them from going to from Burger World. He initially assumed that she was dating older men for pay. He and Yugi secretly following her home after school to find out what she was really doing. They were surprised to see her enter Burger World and greet them at the door, in a waitress uniform. Anzu was intimidated, as after school jobs were against the school rules, and worried that Jonouchi, being a loud mouth would tell everyone. Anzu told the boys that she was saving money to go to New York to study dancing and Jonouchi promised not to tell anyone. Anzu got held hostage by an escaped convict. Jonouchi was unable to assist as the customers had to lie on the floor and couldn't see that Dark Yugi was rescuing her, as he was positioned by behind an obese man.

Kokurano
Jonouchi told Yugi that he was down on his luck, claiming to have gotten hit once in a fight against four punks. He attended a service hosted by the alleged psychic Kokurano in the hopes of curing his bad luck. Seeing that it was mostly girls at the service, he pretended Anzu dragged him there, when he was the one who insisted on her and Yugi coming. Kokurano simply told Jonouchi that he was having bad luck and didn't offer him any advice.

Goro
When coming up with ideas for their classes fundraiser in the school festival, Jonouchi suggested that they put on a cabaret, staring the girls from their class, which was immediately rejected. The class decided on a Carnival Games booth. Jonouchi worked on making the barrel for the life size version of Pop-up Pirate and planned on teasing whoever was to play the role of Bluebeard. However since Jonouchi was the right size for the barrel and Yugi had specifically made the head to fit Jonouchi, Anzu gave Jonouchi the role. When Goro Inogashira attempted to steal the class' spot, Jonouchi tried to fight him, but got stuck in the barrel and was easily knocked back by Goro. On the day of the festival, Jonouchi played Bluebeard and Anzu thought he had fun.

Ms. Chono
Honda fell for their fellow classmate, Miho Nosaka and despite Honda's objections, Jonouchi enlisted Yugi to help them find a gift for Miho. Yugi took them to his family's game shop where they get a love jigsaw puzzle. Together they hid the gift in Miho's desk. However Miho didn't find it until Ms. Chono performed a desk check. Chono started to assemble the puzzle and read its message out to the class. She intended to punish the sender, but Yugi, Jonouchi and Honda all claimed responsibility. Dark Yugi turned the jigsaw into a Shadow Game, so that Ms. Chono felt the pain she inflicted on others by working on the puzzle. This caused her ugly make up free face to be exposed, causing her to flee the classroom, without punishing Honda and his friends. Afterwards Honda asked Miho out directly, but she declined. Jonouchi then offered to buy him a hamburger to cheer him up.

Junky Scorpion owner
Having had his eyes on a pair of Air Muscle shoes for a long time, Jonouchi took Honda and Yugi to the Junky Scorpion shop, to buy a pair. The owner refused to sell Jonouchi the shoes unless he puts his foot inside one of the shoes, while there was a scorpion inside. Jonouchi did it and found out that there really was no scorpion inside; it had just been a test and the owner sold him the shoes for half price. Shortly after leaving the shop, Jonouchi, Yugi and Honda were ambushed by a group of thugs, who stole the shoes. The three boys tracked down the thugs afterwards. Jonouchi and Honda beat them up and learned that the store owner paid them to get back the shoes. By the time Jonouchi and Honda returned to the shop, shop Yugi already had gotten the shoes back and the owner was being rushed to the hospital for scorpion stings. Unaware that he changed to Dark Yugi and defeated the owner in a Shadow Game, Yugi returned the shoes to Jonouchi, with a hole in one, which Jonouchi considered a battle scar.

Kaiba
Jonouchi took up Duel Monsters, having been introduced by Sugoroku and Yugi at their shop, where Sugoroku showed them his rare card, the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon". Jonouchi made plans to play Duel Monsters at school the next day with Yugi, just before Seto Kaiba arrived. Learning that Kaiba plays Duel Monsters, Jonouchi invited him to join them, but Kaiba ridiculed his cards and told him to come back after collecting at least 10,000. The next day at school Jonouchi was defeated by Yugi and asked him for a rematch, unintentionally distracting Yugi from approaching Kaiba, who just stole the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card.

Hirutani's gang
Hirutani blackmailed Jonouchi into rejoining his gang by threatening to beat-up Jonouchi's classmates if he didn't. This caused Jonouchi to be away from home for two days without leave and consequently missed a day of school. Honda became suspicious when he noticed Jonouchi was absent, as he couldn't recall Jonouchi ever missing school beforehand. Jonouchi and the gang were spotted mugging someone outside the American Club, prompting Yugi to rush over and plea with Jonouchi to leave the gang. Jonouchi denied knowing Yugi and didn't react when one of the gangsters punched Yugi. Later at J'z, Jonouchi attacked the gangster for hitting Yugi earlier. Hirutani then orders the rest of the gang to seize Jonouchi and take him to the torture chamber. At the chamber, Jonouchi had his hands tied above his head and was beaten by the gang. They electrocuted him with stun guns to the point where he couldn't speak. Hirutani orders the gang to continue to shock him, despite concerns that it could kill him. Dark Yugi arrived, stopped the gang and defeated them in a Shadow Game, saving Jonouchi.

Shadi
Yugi invited Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda to the Egypt Unearthed exhibition at the Domino City Museum. Jonouchi was worried about getting cursed, since they found a mummy. He also became worried that Yugi might be cursed when Anzu asked didn't Yugi's grandfather say that the archaeologists who uncovered the Millennium Puzzle died mysterious deaths. One the day of the exhibition Jonouchi told Yugi off for wearing his school uniform on the weekend and was shown around by Professor Yoshimori.

When news broke of Professor Kanekura's death, Jonouchi, Anzu, Yugi and Sugoroku visited Professor Yoshimori at the university to comfort him. However Shadi, seeking to test Yugi, had possessed Yoshimori by redecorating his soul room. Yoshimori acted strange and began choking Jonouchi, while Jonouchi's friends tried pulling him off. Anzu freed Jonouchi by walloping Yoshimori in the head with a globe. Jonouchi distracted the zombie Yoshimori from the others, by having him chase him around the building. Among Jonouchi's efforts to snap the professor back to normal, he punched him the face, knocking out more of his teeth and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher. Eventually, Yoshimori pushed him out a third floor window. Jonouchi managed to get onto a ledge and spotted Anzu, who was being used in the Trial of the Mind Shadow Game, standing motionless on a board hanging over the edge up above him. He climbed up to rescue her, but was followed by the professor. Still hassled by the professor, Jonouchi held onto Anzu's board as its supporting rope began to break. Seeing Yugi's friends work together and trusting each other, caused Shadi's ushebti to break, letting his Millennium Key, slide down a rope to Anzu, returning her to normal. Jonouchi and Dark Yugi helped Anzu to safety and Dark Yugi told Jonouchi to touch the key off the professor to return him to normal. He complied, but also noticed Yugi was acting different. After seeing everyone was okay, Jonouchi told Shadi he was unwelcome here. After Shadi left, Anzu asked Jonouchi if Yugi seemed different to him, but after they approach Yugi, he had turned back his normal self. When Yoshimori noticed some of his teeth were missing, Jonouchi tried blaming Anzu.

During the previous Shadow Game, Dark Yugi faced an illusion of Jonouchi created by Shadi. They were to play the Game of Death, where each player was to try and force their opponent to walk over the edge and fall to their death. The illusion displayed the traits Jonouchi had when he was bully. Dark Yugi refused to take his turns, as it was possible he was facing the real Jonouchi, possessed by Shadi. Dark Yugi's trust in Jonouchi, caused the illusion to disappear, rather than force him off the edge.

Digital Pets
When Digital Pets became popular, Jonouchi purchased one, which his friends mocked how ugly it had become. When he connected it with Yugi's pet, U2, to exchange data, Jonouchi's pet proved to be a bully as a kicked U2, but they became friends shortly afterwards. Their classmate, Kujirada had a hidden character pet, which Jonouchi tittered at for being uglier than his. The next day at school, Jonouchi left his pet unattended, during which Kujirada fed it to his own pet. As Kujirirada tried feeding more pets to his own, it was defated by U2, who had become stronger due to its data transfer with Jonouchi's pet.

Hanasaki
Jonouchi was introduced to the American comic Zombire by Tomoya Hanasaki. He, Yugi, Anzu and Honda were all invited to Hanasaki's house to see his Zombire collection afterwards. Among their antics, Jonouchi got a fright when Hanasaki's father entered wearing a Zombire mask and assembled a figure not knowing Hanasaki had wanted to keep in its box unopened. As they left Hanasaki forgave Jonouchi for assembling the figure, which he now thought was better assembled, and Hanasaki's father begged them to stay friends with Hanasaki. After assuring him that they would, Jonouchi told him that Hanasaki wasn't as fragile as his father thought.

Prior events
Jonouchi went with Yugi to the arcade hoping to beat "KAI" in at least one of the national high scores. He heard from other kids at the arcade, that the "KAI" high scores belonged to Seto Kaiba and that there was a rumor Kaiba was working on building the ultimate game. Jonouchi failed to beat Kaiba's score on a racing game and after watching Yugi play Virtual VS for a while went to buy a coffee and a cola for himself and Yugi. However when he returned, he found Yugi had been beaten-up and his Millennium Puzzle was stolen.

Jonouchi tracked down the thief, who offered to give back the puzzle, if Jonouchi could beat him in a fighting game. The rules involved each player holding a knife in their mouth that would stick into their throat if punched in the face. Jonouchi asked that his opponent not use a knife, as he didn't want to hold back punching him in the face. Jonouchi founght with his hands in his pockets and found it difficult to dodge his opponent's punches in the alley. He told his opponent that he had promises in each of his pockets. He revealed one of the promises was Yugi's cola, which he sprayed in his opponent's eyes after it had been shaken, and that the other was the promise to "clobber" him and punched his opponent in the jaw. Jonouchi then took back the Puzzle to give to Yugi.

Shortly afterwards a limousine pulled up beside Yugi and Jonouchi and chauffeur explained that Seto Kaiba requested to see Yugi at his mansion. Yugi and Jonouchi both got inside the limousine and Jonouchi was surprised to hear that Kaiba was president of KaibaCorp. When it was discovered that Kaiba was unable to see them, Mokuba Kaiba asked the butler to prepare the "special course" meal for them. Yugi and Jonouchi were disappointed to find that it consisted of childish meals and Mokuba suggested that they make a game out of it by spinning the turntable and eating the meal that stopped before them. Mokuba lied when Jonouchi asked if the food was poisoned. Mokuba cheated by using a hidden switch in a syrup bottle, to make Jonouchi eat a poisoned meal. Yugi turned into Dark Yugi and defeated Mokuba winning the antidote to save Jonouchi.

Jonouchi and Yugi stayed the night at Kaiba's mansion and were greeted by Kaiba the next morning. Jonouchi initially got mad over what Mokuba did, but Kaiba brought them to the grand opening of his Kaiba Land theme park as special guests. They and many other children were given free access to all the attractions, leading Jonouchi to believe he had misjudged Kaiba. However Kaiba showed them a special show, where he dueled and defeated Sugoroku Mutou. After which, he forced Yugi to take part in Death-T, the theme park of death, before releasing Sugoroku from the simulation capable of driving humans insane. Jonouchi insisted on accompanying Yugi in Death-T, as did Honda who was babysitting his nephew, Johji, in the audience.

Death T-1
In the first stage, Death T-1, they bumped into Anzu, who to their surprise was working there. She told them the rules of the stage; how they were to face three others in a shootout game. Unbeknownst to them, Kaiba had hired professional hitmen, Johnny Gayle, Bob McGuire and "name unknown", as their opponents. Jonouchi couldn't bear Honda's plan of staying put, waiting for the other team, so he leapt up on the walls of the arena and took out Gayle by kicking him in the face. Honda called the team to retreat after finding their guns had no effect on their opponents, while their opponents were armed with lethal guns. Jonouchi suggested another one of his sneak attacks, but Honda and Johji dealt with the situation after finding Anzu's gun hadn't been rigged.

Death T-2
Jonouchi's bravery vanished as they entered the Horror Zone for Death T-2. The first part of the stage consisted of the Electric Chair Ride, during which, Jonouchi, Yugi, Honda, Anzu and Kaiba's butler, who was orchestrating the ride, were strapped to electric chairs that shock their sitter if they screamed. Jonouchi advised his friends not to make a sound, but they yelled back that he was most likely to scream. The participants were subjected to various terrors during the ride. These caused Jonouchi to faint, preventing him from screaming. The gang were saved as Johji caused the butler to scream and consequently electrocute himself.

After the ride, the gang entered the Murderer's Mansion and the doors locked behind them. Jonouchi's attempt to pick the lock was mocked by Johji, as there was no use going back the way they came. The gang were had to put their hands through holes, where they got locked below a large guillotine. Yugi managed to solve the necessary riddle to save them.

After the guillotine substage, Johji got kidnapped by the Chopman. Since Johji had saved them in the Electric Chair Ride, Jonouchi faced the Chopman to make it up to him. Under Kaiba's death threat, Johji handcuffed Jonouchi to the Chopman. The two had to fight to the death inside a small chamber with weapons hanging from the ceiling. Jonouchi was no match for the Chopman's strength, but after the Chopman's chainsaw got stuck in a pillar. While the Chopman tried to free his chainsaw, Jonouchi looked for something to pick the lock on the handcuff. Yugi pointed him to a candlestick and then briefed him in on a plan to defeat the Chopman. Jonouchi picked open his end of the handcuffs with the candlestick holder. By the time the Chopman freed his chainsaw, Jonouchi had attached his end of the handcuffs the door and left the candle hang loosely off it. Before noticing this, the Chopman gave the chain a tug ripping out the door, allowing Jonouchi escape. The candle hit the oil covered floor, setting the Chopman on fire.

Death T-3
For Death T-3, Jonouchi and his friends were locked in an empty room. While waiting for something to happen, Jonouchi talked about how his life had changed a lot lately. Anzu drew a smiley face on her, Jonouchi, Yugi and Honda's hands and explained that if they wound up taking separate paths in life, they should remember this symbol and they'll remember being friends. Yugi broke down and cried that if it wasn't for him, they wouldn't be in the mess they were in. Outraged, Jonouchi grabbed Yugi by the collar, demanding that he never say that again, as they were a team. The stage began and large blocks started falling from the ceiling. Having studied dance, Anzu could follow the rhythms the blocks were falling at and guided the group away the blocks about to fall. After the room filled up, the gang were able to escape through a hole high up on one of the walls. While the everyone else made it through, Honda got stuck and told the others to go on. A block sealed the gap they escaped through preventing them going back to Honda.

Death T-4
Upset over what happened to Honda, Yugi admitted to Anzu and Jonouchi that he thought there was another Yugi inside him. He'd been afraid to tell them, as he feared they might leave him if they knew. Jonouchi promised that even if that's true, he'd always be friends with Yugi. Jonouchi and Anzu, knowingly saw Dark Yugi for the first time as, Yugi switched to him, before facing Mokuba in Capsule Monster Chess in Death T-4.

Death T-5
Jonouchi and Anzu were held at gunpoint by Saruwatari and another KaibaCorp guard during Death T-4. After Dark Yugi won, they were escorted to watch him in Death T-5, where he faced Kaiba in Duel Monsters. Before Yugi and Kaiba's Duel began, Jonouchi swiped Saruwatari's phone and called Tomoya Hanasaki, who was at the hospital, to check up on Sugoroku. During the Duel, Dark Yugi imagined Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda were with him before drawing his last card. When he won, the guards still had Jonouchi and Anzu at gunpoint, but Honda, who had been saved by Mokuba, appeared and helped Jonouchi fight the guards off. One of the guards managed to get back on his feet and hold his gun to Jonouchi's head. However Mokuba told him to stop down and explained that he saved them because he owed Yugi a favor.

As they left Kaiba Land, Jonouchi got word from Hanasaki who said Sugoroku's surgery was a success. After realizing that Dark Yugi had switched back to Yugi, Jonouchi was about to ask him a question, but then decided not to.

Tsuruoka
Jonouchi, Honda and Yugi played the Achievement Test Bingo Game when the results of their achievement tests were posted. Jonouchi lost having not got any lines on his card and had to buy three hamburgers for Yugi and two for Honda. The guidance councilor, Tsuruoka, spotted them making a game of the test results and pointed out how they scored among the lowest of the four hundred who took the test. He confiscated Yugi's Lovely Two love compatibility tester and threatened to break it while calling the three of them "unskilled slackers". However Dark Yugi emerged and claimed they had skills Tsuruoka could never match. This resulted in Tsuruoka imposing a game where he hid the Lovely Two and gave them one hour to find it or be expelled. Jonouchi and Honda fetched some digging equipment in case Tsuruoka had buried the device, but Dark Yugi deduced he had hidden it inside. Eventually Dark Yugi discovered the device was somewhere on Tsuruoka's body and used Anzu's Lovely Two to get Yugi's to make a reaction noise proving it was there. Jonouchi and Honda pounced on Tsuruoka and discovered he was wearing a wig and his device inside it.

The Get the Million Game
Jonouchi sent in an entry form to participate in ZTV's The Get the Million Game. He decorated his form with rainbow colors to make it stand out. The studio did a background check on him and found that his father was an unemployed alcoholic, whose gambling debts Jonouchi was working to pay off. The producer thought Jonouchi's sob story and struggle would be perfect to boost ratings and he was selected to appear on the show. Jonouchi succeeded in the first two stages of the game, Darts of Fortune and The Electric Helmet. The final stage The Wheel of Fate had been rigged to lose, but Dark Yugi had discovered this and played a game, which prevented the game from being fixed. Jonouchi succeeded and won the million yen. However the studio went bankrupt before Jonouchi cashed the check.

Monster Fighter
Jonouchi purchased a Monster Fighter figure; "Killer Emaada" at Kame Game and used it in a a game against Yugi, which he lost. The two of them brought their fighters to school the next day, where Jonouchi lost another game to Yugi and got plenty of other students interested in the game. After Yugi's fighter got stolen by Koji Nagumo, he borrowed Jonouchi's "Killer Emaada", which Dark Yugi used to defeat Nagumo in a rematch.

Dragon Cards
Imori brought the Dragon Cards, while they were sealed, to Kame Game to ask Sugoroku for information about them. He allowed Jonouchi to open the seal, but Jonouchi was stopped by Sugoroku, who explained that breaking the seal would cause yin and yang to clash and create a warped power. This freaked Jonouchi out. A few days later he realized something was wrong with Yugi, who had received a ransom note from Imori, but Yugi insisted everything was okay.

Hirutani's gang
Jonouchi purchased a Yovega Fireboy yo-yo brought it to school school. The other students mocked him for trying to show off by giving walk the dog a new name. Determined to impress them, he tried his "loop the loop" trick, causing everyone to run for cover. Nezumi was unimpressed and told him he never wanted to see a yo-yo again after he had been mugged by a yo-yo-wielding gang. Disgusted by the misuse of yo-yos, Jonouchi agreed to help get revenge on the gang. Nezumi led Jonouchi and Yugi to the location he said he got mugged, which they recognized as Hirutani's torture chamber". After entering they were surrounded by Hirutani's gang, who tried getting Jonouchi to rejoin them, as Hirutani's number 2. Jonouchi refused, but Nezumi who had set them up, helped the gangsters capture Yugi and hang him from a hook by his Millennium Puzzle rope. Jonouchi pushed his way through the gang taking numerous blows from their yo-yos and helped Yugi down.

Hirutani gave Jonouchi a last chance to join him, before ordering the gang to kill him and Yugi. While the gangsters swung their yo-yos at them, Jonouchi borrowed Yugi's Millennium Puzzle and swung it around, catching the yo-yos on its rope. He then took all the yo-yos and attached them to the hook, causing the gangsters to be hung by their fingers.

Yugi switched to Dark Yugi to help fight off the rest of the gang. Dark Yugi led the remaining gangsters onto a rooftop and Jonouchi separated Hirutani from them. The two engaged in a fight, where Jonouchi punched out two of Hirutani's teeth. Hirutani broke some glass and threw at Jonouchi, causing some to go in his eyes. Hirutani punched Jonouchi around while he was temporarily unable to see and prepared to stab him with a shard of glass. However Jonouchi heard Hirutani step on some broken glass and determined his location. He swung a punch at Hirutani, knocking him off the roof and leaving him hang on by one hand. Jonouchi then took out his yo-yo and used walk the dog to hit Hirutani's hand, causing him to fall. Jonouchi met up with Dark Yugi who had disposed of the other gangsters and apologized for getting him dragged into his problems, but Dark Yugi insisted that Jonouchi's problems were his problems too.

Monster World
When Ryo Bakura transferred to Domino High School, he sat next to Jonouchi and the two quickly got along. During the lunch break, Jonouchi introduced Bakura to Yugi, Anzu and Honda and the four of them agreed to play the tabletop role-playing game Monster World the next day. A group of girls then came over and told Jonouchi not to be hogging Bakura and pulled Bakura away for a guide of the school. After school, Jonouchi, Yugi, Anzu and Honda caught up with Bakura to ask where they'd play Monster World, but Bakura said that it was better they don't play at all, since the last few people who played games with him all wound up in comas.

Bakura didn't come to school the next day, so Jonouchi, Yugi, Anzu and Honda went to his apartment to cheer him up and prove that his old friends ending up in comas was just a coincidence, by playing Monster World. They met Dark Bakura at the door and mistook him for Ryo Bakura. Dark Bakura went over the rules of Monster World and created their character miniatures after giving them forms to fill out. Jonouchi's character, "Joey" was a human warrior. He, Yugi, Anzu and Honda played the adventurers, while Dark Bakura played the Dark Master.

Not knowing anything about their enemy or the world the game was set in, the adventurers went to the village for information. Jonouchi got enthusiastically involved in the game as he pushed the barman into telling them how Zorc had taken over the land and infested it with his monsters. Honda noted how the game brought out the worst in Jonouchi, as he demanded the barman give them gold so they could help him. The barman directed them to another villager, who could tell them the safest path to Zorc Castle. Jonouchi and Honda roared out laughing at how the villager looked like Mr. Karita, the gym teacher, not knowing it was really him, trapped in a miniature. Karita gave them directions and advised them to stay out of the forest.

Outside the village there was a 30% chance of an enemy monster encounter. Dark Bakura rolled a 02 on a pair of ten-sided dice. Since this was less then 30, an enemy Level 3 Goblin appeared. Jonouchi rolled the dice to determine the strength of his attack. Dark Bakura calculated he would need 40 or lower to slay the goblin and Jonouchi rolled a 13, easily killing it.

The adventurers encountered a stranger lying unconscious in their path. Unbeknownst to them it was Zorc in disguise. Jonouchi got his character to poke the stranger with his sword, waking them up. The stranger told them that he had a holy sword, capable of defeating Zorc, stolen from him after he was attacked in the forest and begged for their help. Jonouchi thought it was worth going against Karita's safety advise for the sword and after some discussion the adventurers agreed to help the stranger.

Inside the forest there was a 80% encounter rate and the adventurers were quickly faced with five monsters. Jonouchi rolled an 82, causing his character to fall on his face when he tried attacking. Honda, Yugi and Anzu defeated the monsters and tamed Pokii into joining their party.

The stranger revealed that he was Zorc and changed form. Dark Bakura rolled a 00, causing Zorc to trap Anzu in her miniature. Angry over this, Jonouchi rolled to attack Zorc, not realizing it wasn't his turn. He rolled a fumble, 99, causing his soul to also be sealed in his miniature. Honda and Yugi were sealed in their miniatures too shortly afterwards, leaving Dark Yugi to roll for all four of them.

Dark Yugi caused Honda to blow off Zorc's hand. Zorc retreated afterwards, while his hand mutated into two more monsters. Using the double hit technique, Dark Yugi rolled a super critical 00 for Jonouchi, allowing him to slash the eyeball monster in two. The double hit was banned for both players after Dark Yugi used it again to get Yugi to tame Pao.

At Zorc Castle, the adventurers inspected a strange pedestal inside a tower, causing them to get caught in a trap. The spiked ceiling dropped onto their heads and it was estimated that they would have three turns before the miniatures broke under its pressure. While trying to figure the required dice roll to complete the roof's supporting tower, Yugi and Jonouchi were attacked by Zorc lowering their HP. Dark Yugi managed to make the right roll and due to the adventurers' high speed scores, they escaped just before Zorc attacked again. Jonouchi's figure was left with two holes in his head due to the spikes.

Having caught Zorc off guard, the adventurers won initiative and began attacking Zorc. Channeling their anger into the dice, Dark Yugi made powerful rolls as they attacked Zorc, but due to the difference in levels, Zorc wasn't injured too badly. Using brainwashed dice, Dark Bakura rolled a 00 for Zorc's attack. However Ryo Bakura had been able to take control of Dark Bakura's left hand, since his avatar's hand had been blown off, and used it to recalculate the damage so the adventurers each survived with 1 HP remaining. Dark Yugi rolled a 05 for Jonouchi, allowing him to stab and gouge out Zorc's left eye. Dark Yugi got Anzu to heal the party afterwards.

With his control of the left hand, Bakura rolled a 99 with the brainwashed dice, causing Zorc's next attack to backfire. Dark Bakura then impaled the left hand on one of the castle towers, causing the adventures to suspect Dark Bakura was not the same Bakura they knew. Yugi used his beast tamer training hand to pull the White Wizard Bakura, the avatar of Ryo Bakura, out of Zorc's wounded left arm. Bakura joined the adventurers and helped them fight Zorc.

After taking significant damage, Zorc transformed into Last Zorc and attacked the party, but they were shielded by Bakura's magic, leaving them with some HP. Pokii and Yugi were able to take advantage of Last Zorc's weak point being exposed to inflict serious damage and Jonouchi cut Last Zorc in two afterwards.

Last Zorc was still alive and Dark Bakura threatened to have it self-destruct and kill the adventurers. He and Dark Yugi rolled for initiative, tying at 00 each. However with part of his soul sealed in the brainwashed dice, Bakura was able to shatter Dark Bakura's dice, allowing the adventurers to move and kill Zorc.

With Dark Bakura defeated Jonouchi, his friends and everyone else Dark Bakura sealed in miniatures returned to their bodies. Bakura made a diorama of the adventurers as a symbol of their friendship when they fought together.

Prior events
Jonouchi built-up his Duel Monsters Deck to contain nothing but the strongest Monster Cards he could get. However this caused him to lose several Duels, including one to Anzu. Frustrated, he asked Yugi to help him become better. Yugi pointed out the problem with using just Monster Cards and invited him and Anzu to come to his house to watch the finals of the Duel Monsters tournament. After the finals, Yugi put on a videotape he received in the mail. The tape contained what appeared to be a pre-recording of Maximillion Pegasus, who challenged Yugi to a Duel. Dark Yugi got help from Jonouchi, Anzu and Sugoroku in testing his theory that Pegasus was using subliminal messaging. He witnessed Dark Yugi losing and Sugoroku getting sucked into the videotape by the power of Pegasus' Millennium Eye.

The next day at school, Jonouchi explained to Bakura what happened to Sugoroku. he also tried cheering-up Dark Yugi. After school, he received a videotape, which he feared could also have been from Pegasus. He, Anzu and Honda went to Yugi's house to watch it, as Jonouchi didn't have an 8 mm player of his own. Before playing the tape, Yugi showed Jonouchi the invitation package for Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom tournament he'd received. However the tape contained a greeting from Shizuka. Afterwards Jonouchi told his friends how he and Shizuka had lived apart since their parents split up and that Shizuka was close to losing her eyesight. Jonouchi wept about how he couldn't help her, but Dark Yugi split his Star Chips for the Duelist Kingdom with Jonouchi. He said that Jonouchi could enter to win the prize money to pay for the surgery to save Shizuka, while the Yugis entered to save Sugoroku. Dark Yugi and Jonouchi spent the next week training for the tournament. During this time Yugi gave Jonouchi the cards "Baby Dragon" and "Time Wizard". According to Jonouchi they dueled 187 times over this period, with Yugi winning every time.

Yugi and Jonouchi, accompanied by Anzu, Honda and Bakura went to Domino Pier to get on the boat to the kingdom. Here Jonouchi met Mai and unsuccessfully tried to impress her by saying he was friends with "the famous Yugi". He was unimpressed to find that he had to sleep in the common room on the ship, but took the chance to try and trade with the other participants. When Haga threw Yugi's "Exodia" cards overboard, Jonouchi dived into the water, but only managed to retrieve two of them.

Dark Yugi and Haga
When they arrived Duelist Kingdom the next day, Jonouchi briefly had a cold. Once the tournament began, he and his friends followed Haga into a forest, and supported Dark Yugi as he dueled Haga to get revenge. Jonouchi's advise to burn down the forest if necessary to defeat "Cocoon of Evolution" gave Dark Yugi the idea to use "Burning Land" to rid it of its Field Power Bonus. After Haga was defeated, Jonouchi took his Dueling Gauntlet.

Mai
Jonouchi went out into the grass plains and promised to show Shizuka scenery like it some day. He was advised by Dark Yugi to be careful when choosing the location of his Duel. Jonouchi thought he would be safe in the plains, which should strengthen his Warrior and Beast-Warrior-Type monsters. Mai then came over to their group. Expecting her to challenge Dark Yugi, they were surprised to hear she wanted to Duel Jonouchi. She explained that it was a better strategy to crush weak Duelists and earn Star Chips before dueling Dark Yugi. Anzu tried talking Jonouchi out of accepting, but Dark Yugi told him to do his best and Jonouchi didn't want to be remembered as a coward, so he accepted the Duel and they bet 1 Star Chip each. Jonouchi asked Mai why she entered the tournament and thought her desire to have the prize money for excessive self interests was a weak reason. When asked himself, he said he was fighting to save a life.

Mai began using her Aroma Tactics to catch Jonouchi off guard and strengthened her "Harpy Lady" with accessory Spell Cards. When Mai mocked Anzu's talk of how hearing friends' feelings could make a Duelist stronger, Dark Yugi reminded Jonouchi of the "something you can show, but can't see" riddle. Thinking the answer "friendship" wasn't going to save him this time, Jonouchi thought he wasn't smart enough to figure out what Dark Yugi was trying to tell him. Thinking he'd let Shizuka down, he closed his eyes to imagine what blindness was like. Without concentrating on what he could see, Jonouchi noticed the smell of various perfumes and realized Mai had marked her cards with perfume to see what they were without looking; one could "show the cards", but couldn't "see the smell". No longer put off by Mai's trick, Jonouchi was able to concentrate. Although Mai said he still couldn't beta her in a hundred years. Jonouchi used "Time Wizard" to weaken Mai's "Harpy Lady" monsters and age "Baby Dragon" into "Thousand Dragon", who destroyed the Harpies and defeated Mai. After the Duel Jonouchi told Mai that there was one thing that doesn't change after a thousand ears and its "something you can show, but can't see".

Dark Yugi and Kajiki
Jonouchi and his friends soon realized they hadn't any food for the rest of the day. Jonouchi annoyed Anzu, remarking that as a girl, she should have thought ahead and made lunch. He wasn't keen about eating mushrooms Honda's Survival Book deemed safe, but quickly smelled Ryota Kajiki's unattended fish being cooked. Jonouchi compared stealing the food to taking Star Chips and deemed it all part of the game of life. Kajiki spotted them and seemed angry at first, but eventually shared his fish with them. However he challenged Dark Yugi to a Duel afterwards and revealed the food has been bait to lure Duelists to the ocean terrain, which suited his Deck. Jonouchi and the others supported Dark Yugi during the Duel.

Dark Yugi and Mokuba
Jonouchi spotted Saruwatari forcefully restraining a boy, who was to be eliminated for running out of Star Chips. The boy claimed the Star Chips were stolen and Jonouchi offered to catch the thief to save him from being eliminated. He added last second that he'd take half the Star Chips as payment. Shortly after Jonouchi and his friends began searching, they saw that the boy had been put on a boat leaving the kingdom and they were confronted by the thief, who turned out to be Mokuba. Mokuba unsuccessfully tried to steal Dark Yugi's Star Chips and told the group about Pegasus plan to take over KaibaCorp, where it was necessary for Pegasus to defeat Yugi in a Duel.

Dark Yugi and the ventriloquist
Jonouchi watched Dark Yugi Duel and defeat the Ventriloquist of the Dead, during which time Saruwatari secretly took Mokuba back to Pegasus Castle without any of them noticing.

Ryuzaki
Jonouchi had trouble finding opponents as they were afraid to be near Dark Yugi in fear of being challenged by him. Mai was annoyed that she lost to Jonouchi. Thinking it would be shallow to challenge him to a rematch, she arranged for Dinosaur Ryuzaki to Duel him, and planned to defeat Ryuzaki afterwards effectively outranking both Duelists. Jonouchi accepted the Duel and requested that Dark Yugi didn't help him. Each played wagered 2 Star Chips.

Jonouchi planned on using the same combo he beat Mai with, but Ryuzaki destroyed "Baby Dragon" before Jonouchi got to age it with "Time Wizard". Jonouchi got overpowered by Ryuzaki's Dinosaurs at first and didn't know how to use "Time Wizard" without "Baby Dragon". He took advantage of Dinosaurs weakness to fire-based attacks with the "Flame Swordsman" to defeat a number of Ryuzaki's monsters before being overpowered by the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". Ryuzaki imposed an ante, where he bet "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" and Jonouchi bet "Time Wizard". Jonouchi took the gamble and played "Time Wizard", whose effect was a random chance "Self-Destruct" or "Time Magic". The "Time Magic" effect activated and fossilized Ryuzaki's monsters. Mai inadvertently cheered when Jonouchi won.

Campout
As it got dark, Jonouchi and his friends found a space in the woods to spend the night and grew hungry once again. Jonouchi was about to eat a mushroom, despite Yugi, Honda and Bakura'a attempt to restrain him. He stopped when Mai arrived with food. Having overheard Jonouchi cry that he wanted food not Star Chips, she joked about trading him a small piece of food for a Star Chip. Mai suggested a ceasefire. She shared her food with the others and got the boys to do the cooking. While they ate, she made it clear that they could be friends that night, but would be enemies the next day. Jonouchi and the other boys slept outside, while Anzu and Mai used the tent.

Jonouchi, Honda and Bakura were woken up during the night. Jonouchi learned Mai had lost all her Star Chips to the Player Killer of Darkness and refused to take them back after Dark Yugi won them back. Jonouchi proposed that he take the Star Chips instead, causing Mai to angrily demand them back, which he happily did. He said she could still throw them away, but suggested not letting her pride throw them and her dream of dueling Yugi away.

Kaiba
Jonouchi's next three attempts to fall asleep were disturbed by Honda thinking a vine was a snake, Bakura finding the Millennium Ring reacting to the Millennium Eye and Kaiba landing his helicopter on the island. Still angry over Death-T, Jonouchi tried picking a fight with Kaiba. Kaiba offered to have a Duel using his new Duel Disk technology, which used an altered set of rules.

Jonouchi Summoned an array of monsters all of which got destroyed by Kaiba's "Battle Ox" or its upgrade, "Rabid Horseman". Eventually Jonouchi Summoned "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", which defeated the horseman, only for Kaiba to defeat it with "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and win the Duel. Kaiba continued to mock Jonouchi after winning. Anzu tried telling Kaiba off and Bakura was about to tell him about Jonouchi fighting for Shizuka, but Jonouchi told him not to tell Kaiba. Before leaving Kaiba told them about a Duel Pegasus had with Bandit Keith, in which Pegasus demonstrated his Mind Scan ability.

That night, Jonouchi was tormented in his dreams of his loss to Kaiba.

Kozuka
The next morning, Jonouchi got a bit worried by Yugi's deduction that today's opponents would be even stronger, but insisted he would take down whoever stood in his way. Jonouchi left the group while he urinated. He was ambushed afterwards by Bandit Keith's lackeys who dragged him into the hidden Crypt part of the island, where he was to Duel Ghost Kozuka. Jonouchi fainted at first, but was woken up as one of others punched him. Jonouchi instinctively seized him and prepared to fight back, but stopped on seeing skulls everywhere. He got creeped out as Kozuka told him he was in the crypt and surrounded by ghosts. Terrified, Jonouchi accepted the Duel and the wager of his four Star Chips. Not wanting Kaiba to be right about him being afraid to ever Duel again, he outruled running.

Kozuka reluctantly Summoned non-Zombie-Type monsters under Keith's orders, which Jonouchi easily defeated. However Kozaku then used "Call of the Haunted" to revive his three monsters as Zombies, which were powered up by the Graveyard terrain. Whenever he defeated these Zombies, they came back even stronger. His attempt to get rid of them with "Time Wizard" backfired as it self-destructed when the "Time Roulette" stopped on a skull. Kozaku further powered up the Zombies with "Pumpking the King of Ghosts", but Jonouchi defeated it with "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". Kozaku's remaining Zombies were stronger than "Red-Eyes" and with "Stop Defense" prevented him shielding his Life Points by putting monsters in Defense Mode. Jonouchi Summoned "Kung Fu Fighter Ultimator" and used "Shield and Sword" to swap all monsters' ATK and DEF. Since the Zombies were only able to instinctively attack, they had 0 DEF, which became their ATK, allowing "Kung Fu Fighter Ultimator" to easily defeat one and drop Kozaku's Life Points to 0.

Dark Yugi, Anzu, Honda and Bakura found Jonouchi just after the Duel and congratulated him on his win. Jonouchi called back Keith as he was leaving and asked him to play fair next time if he's a true Duelist. Keith laughed and said that card games are about outwitting your opponent. He suggested that Jonouchi stop pretending to be a nice guy and then prizes would come his way, like the various Decks filled with rare cards under his jacket.

Before Jonouchi and his friends got to leave the underground, Keith had his companions push a boulder in front of the exit, trapping them inside. Before the gap was fully closed, Jonouchi yelled at Keith that he was going to beat him.

Meikyû Brothers
Searching for a way out of the underground, Jonouchi and his friends passed through a maze, which led them to the Labyrinth Duel Arena. Here they met the Player Killers, the Meikyû Brothers, who told them they needed to pass through one of the doors behind them to exit. To find the right door, they needed to defeat them in a Duel so Jonouchi and Dark Yugi joined-up for a Team Labyrinth Duel against the brothers. Jonouchi bet 2 Star Chips and Dark Yugi bet 4.

The Meikyû Brothers used "Labyrinth Wall" to turn the field into a maze. Each turn, monsters could move through the maze by a number of squares equal to their Level. After the Duel Dark Yugi and Jonouchi had to choose one of the two doors. One of which led to the exit, while the other led to doom. To give them a hint, the brothers said that one of them would only tell the truth and the other would only lie. Each claimed that the door they guarded was correct and offered to answer one question from each of Dark Yugi and Jonouchi. Jonouchi remembered a similar riddle, in which a man met a villager at a crossroad between Honest Town and Liar Town. The man wanted to go to Honest Town and was allowed to ask one question. The solution was for him to ask to the villager to take him to his town. In either case, he would be taken to Honest Town. Jonouchi asked the Meikyû Brothers which door they were guarding and both of them pointed to Meikyû the Younger's door, implying Meikyû the Elder was the liar. However Dark Yugi was cautious since both had said "one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies", whereas as a pure liar and pure truthful man could not both say that.

Learning that "Wall Shadow" could attack monsters anywhere in the maze, Jonouchi played "Axe Raider" at a distance from the entrance and comboed it with "Kunai with Chain" on Dark Yugi's turn to ensnare "Wall Shadow" when it tried attacking "Celtic Guardian". Dark Yugi and Jonouchi tried keeping their monsters together, but the brothers used "Magical Labyrinth" to rearrange the walls, splitting up the group. Jonouchi inadvertently got "Axe Raider" to step on a "Jirai Gumo" trap, killing "Axe Raider" and leaving "Flame Swordsman" faced with "Jirai Gumo" and "Labyrinth Tank", but Dark Yugi used "Dark Magician" and "Mystic Box" to destroy those two monsters. The brothers tried using "Dungeon Worm" to dispose of Dark Yugi and Jonouchi's monsters. However Jonouchi equipped "Flame Swordsman" with "Salamandra", allowing it to send an attack into the wormhole and destroy "Dungeon Worm".

Eventually the brothers managed to bring out "Gate Guardian" by Summoning its components. The components "Suijin", "Kazejin" and "Sanga of the Thunder" could attack monsters anywhere in the labyrinth and block attacks directed at each other. When Jonouchi tried attacking "Kazejin" with "Flame Swordsman", "Suijin" blocked and created a flood, which destroyed "Flame Swordsman". Dark Yugi used the water it left to carry the lightning attack from "Summoned Skull" to "Suijin" and used "Spellbinding Circle" to stop "Kazejin" defending. Jonouchi Summoned "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", which Dark Yugi fused with "Summoned Skull" into "Black Skull Dragon". The labyrinth couldn't be only be crossed by flight, nor could "Black Skull Dragon" fit into the narrow corridors, leaving it immobile. Jonouchi used "Copycat" to mimic the brothers' "Ryoku", halving their Life Points to strengthen "Black Skull Dragon" and Dark Yugi used "Shift" to sway its location with "Dark Magician". "Black Skull Dragon" then attacked and destroyed "Gate Guardian", defeating the brothers and earning Jonouchi and Dark Yugi enough Star Chips to enter Pegasus Castle.

With the correct door still left to choose, Jonouchi's head hurt trying to figure it out. He helped the others search the chamber for clues. Dark Yugi was confident that the brothers would say whichever door they choose was wrong, so he tricked them into thinking he had chosen one door for long enough for them to say it was the wrong door, before revealing he had actually chosen the other. This allowed the group the leave the underground and emerge just outside Pegasus Castle.

Dark Yugi and Kaiba
Kaiba blocked Jonouchi, Dark Yugi and their friends from entering the castle. Jonouchi threatened to beat-up Kaiba if he didn't move, but was restrained by Honda and Bakura. Noticing that Jonouchi had earned 10 Star Chips, Kaiba said that he promoted him from a loser to a horse bone (from a loser to a deadbeat in the English version). Dark Yugi wound-up accepting a Duel with Kaiba using Duel Disks, with five Star Chips on the line, while Jonouchi and the others watched. Jonouchi accused Kaiba of fighting dirty when he threatened to kill himself if he lost, a tactic which led to Kaiba's victory. After Anzu told Kaiba that he had been the weak one in the Duel, Jonouchi told him not to forget it was Yugi who saved him and chucked the Duel Disk back to Kaiba.

With no time to lose, Dark Yugi and Jonouchi set out to find more Duelists to earn Star Chips. However Saruwatari pointed out that a boat containing the remaining Duelists had left and claimed that there were already four qualified finalists; Keith, Jonouchi and a third who had left to collect the fourth. Jonouchi tried giving Yugi five of his Star Chips, but Yugi was unwilling to take them. They were then interrupted by Mai, who had collected sixteen Star Chips and offered to give Yugi six in return for him winning back hers earlier. Yugi refused to accept and explained that Dark Yugi would do the same. Jonouchi told Yugi not to feel inferior to Dark Yugi and to think about he wanted himself. Jonouchi said that if a real Duelist only cares about their pride, he doesn't want to be like that. Duelists like that were show-offs, whereas he would crawl through the mud if it meant protecting someone precious to him, he claimed and professed that he is Katsuya Jonouchi before he is a Duelist. Eventually, Yugi took Mai's Star Chips and Jonouchi said that if Dark Yugi had a problem with it, Yugi was to bring him out, so he could kick his butt.

With 10 Star Chips each, Yugi, Jonouchi and Mai entered the castle. Saruwatari tried stopping Anzu, Honda and Bakura entering, but Jonouchi got fed up with him and punched him in the head, knocking him out.

Prior to the finals
Inside the castle, Jonouchi saw Bandit Keith and began to threaten him for trapping them in the cave. However Keith quietened him as he pointed to a Duel between Kaiba and Pegasus about to start. Although Jonouchi wanted both of them to lose, Pegasus losing would ruin the tournament, so he hoped to see Kaiba lose. He was surprised to hear Yugi shouting advice to Kaiba before the Duel. Jonouchi and the others watched Pegasus defeat Kaiba and seal his soul in a "Soul Prison" card as a Penalty Game.

The finalists were told that they would need the cards "The Honor of the King's Right" and "Left Hand" to advance any further. Having not been invited, Jonouchi had neither of those cards, but Dark Yugi gave him the "Right Hand" card, which was required for the prize money.

The finalists and friends were then taken to the dining room for a dinner party. Here they were surprised to see a portrait of Shadi, after which Jonouchi helped explain his and his friends last encounter with Shadi to Bakura. As they ate their soup, Jonouchi was unenthusiastic about Honda's desire for Dark Yugi to save the Kaiba's and stated that they got what they deserved, but Honda compared Kaiba fighting for Mokuba to Jonouchi fighting for Shizuka. Jonouchi was disgusted to find a Millennium Eye replica in his soup. Each finalist received an eye containing a letter which determined their opponents for the finals; In Jonouchi's case, Keith.

That night Keith who had neither of the "Honor" cards snuck into Jonouchi's room to steal his. Yugi who heard Jonouchi talking in his sleep also came into the room and spotted Keith. Jonouchi was woken up as he heard Keith attacking Yugi and managed to fight him off. Keith left without the others noticing he had taken the card and Jonouchi assumed he had just stumbled into the wrong room.

Dark Yugi and Mai
Jonouchi and Anzu supported Dark Yugi during his Duel with Mai. During the Duel, Mai put the "something you can show, but can't see" riddle before Dark Yugi. Jonouchi pointed out that he had asked Mai when they Dueled and asked if she even knew the answer herself. Mai replied that she came up with her own answer and Jonouchi offered to answer on Dark Yugi's behalf, saying that the answer is "friendship". However Mai said he was incorrect and her answer wasn't such a cliché. She thought to herself that Jonouchi was the one who taught her the answer, so he should know. As Mai proceeded to overpower Dark Yugi, Jonouchi started to thing that he had been lucky when he beat Mai before. Mai disagreed and asked Jonouchi if he knew why he had gotten so for in the tournament. Jonouchi credited it to his friends, saying there was no other way a bad player like himself could have gotten that far. Mai said he was right; he knew and accepted his weakness and worked to overcome it. As she elaborated, Dark Yugi realized how he had been fighting wrong and was able to defeat Mai.

Keith
Keith annoyed Jonouchi by putting his feet on the table before their Duel and asked if Jonouchi would lick the bottom of his boot in exchange for him forfeiting. Jonouchi was unable to find his "The Honor of the King's Right Hand" and was given five minutes to produce it before he would be disqualified. Jonouchi ran around to look for the card and dropped to his knees in defeat after four minutes. Mai spotted him weeping and told him to save his tears for if he loses. She handed him her qualification card, which she no longer needed and said that Jonouchi shouldn't give up on his wishes. Jonouchi tried asking why she did this for him, but she reminded him he had no time. As he ran back to the Duel room, Mai thought to herself "You idiot.. it's because we're friends!".

Keith's Machine-Type monsters immunity to magical attacks was an obstacle for Jonouchi. He thought he had an opening when Keith played "Zoa", but Keith transformed it into a Machine with "Metalmorph" when Jonouchi attacked it. Jonouchi still overcame Keith's "Metalzoa", "Stop Defense" combo with "Chasm of Spikes". He took out Keith's remaining Machines with "Garoozis" and "Kunai with Chain". Keith then took out Jonouchi's monsters with the "Russian Roulette" effect of "Barrel Dragon". Jonouchi tried fighting a gamble with a gamble and used the "Time Roulette" effect of "Time Wizard". He succeeded in ageing both monsters, but Keith used "Time Machine" to revert "Barrel Dragon" to its earlier state, causing it to defeat "Thousand Dragon". Jonouchi eventually beat "Barrel Dragon" by using "Copycat" to duplicate "Metalmorph" transforming "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" into "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon". Keith powered-up his "Slot Machine" with "7 Completed" cards he had hidden in his sleeve and attempted to destroy "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon" with "Blast Sphere", but Jonouchi used "Dragon Nails" to make it too strong to be affected. "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon" and "Slot Machine" each stood at 3400 ATK, but Keith used "Pillager" to take Jonouchi's "Shield and Sword", swapping the monsters' ATK and DEF, making "Slot Machine" stronger. However Jonouchi used "Graverobber" on "Time Machine", reverting "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon" to its unswapped ATK and DEF, causing it to defeat "Slot Machine" and Jonouchi to win.

Dark Yugi and Pegasus
Anzu thought that Jonouchi and Dark Yugi would have to Duel in the final. However Dark Yugi said it was unnecessary and they would only end up exposing more of their tactics to Pegasus. Jonouchi was alright with skipping the Duel and letting Dark Yugi face Pegasus as Dark Yugi was the only person he knew capable of defeating Pegasus. Although he was still unsure if it was okay for him to weigh Dark Yugi down with his baggage, by leaving Dark Yugi Duel for him. On the contrary, Dark Yugi claimed that he would win because he was fighting for Jonouchi, like how Jonouchi won because he was fighting for Shizuka. Jonouchi handed "The Honor of the King's Right Hand" to Dark Yugi so he could claim both prizes when he defeats Pegasus. Pegasus also deemed a Duel between the two of them pointless.

Jonouchi, Anzu, Honda and Bakura watched and supported Dark Yugi in his Duel against Pegasus. They were surprised to hear that Yugi would have his soul sealed in a card if he lost and that he accepted the Duel knowing that. During the Duel Jonouchi got annoyed by Pegasus' use of the Millennium Eye to read Yugi's mind, but was confident the Millennium Puzzle would overpower it. This was confirmed when the Yugis used the Mind Shuffle strategy. When Pegasus changed the nature of the Duel to a Shadow Game, Yugi quickly became over exhausted leaving Dark Yugi fight by himself. Anzu explained to Jonouchi that Yugi's soul hadn't died as Yugi had told her before that one Yugi cannot live without the other. Jonouchi feared that this could mean Dark Yugi is on the verge of dying. When Pegasus tried reading Dark Yugi's mind again, an apparition of Bakura, Jonouchi, Yugi, Anzu and Honda blocked his view. With this Dark Yugi was able to defeat Pegasus.

Jonouchi tried describing how he felt during the Duel, but his friends spoke before he got the chance and said everything he was about to say. Dark Yugi then got Pegasus to tell them the story of how he received the Millennium Eye. Afterwards, Jonouchi wondered why Dark Yugi didn't give Pegasus a Penalty Game. Anzu suspected it was because he would only be proving what Pegasus said about the Millennium Items possessing an evil intelligence was true if he did so.

Aftermath
Mokuba woke up shortly after Pegasus returned his soul to his body. He, Jonouchi and Jonouchi's friends went outside the castle, to find Kaiba. While they waited, Jonouchi suggested that Kaiba's soul might have been summoned to Heaven, causing Anzu to snap at him. Jonouchi got a bit teary-eyed when he saw the Kaiba's reunited and thought he just couldn't hate them.

Jonouchi received the prize money from Dark Yugi and asked if it was really okay if he took it. Dark Yugi replied that it was as he thought Jonouchi was the real champion of the kingdom. Jonouchi still insisted that he owed Dark Yugi big time. Dark Yugi said that he can owe him until the day he beats him, prompting Anzu to ask what Jonouchi's record against the Yugis' was, to which he replied that he had 0 wins and 187 loses starting from the one week earlier.

With no boats leaving the island, Kaiba gave Jonouchi and his friends a lift back to Japan in his helicopter as payment for saving him and Mokuba.

Prior events
Jonouchi heard of the Battle City tournament from Yugi and was annoyed that Kaiba hadn't invited him. He worried about losing his "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" when Yugi told him about the ante rule, but also saw it as an opportunity to get more rare cards.

Shizuka's operation had been a success, but she was reluctant to remove the bandage from here eyes. One of the reasons Jonouchi decided to enter the tournament was to show his courage in order to give Shizuka the courage to remove her bandages.

Exodia Rare Hunter
Jonouchi went with Yugi, Honda and Anzu to the RPG Hobby Trading Cards shop to pick up a Duel Disk afterwards. Kaiba assigned Jonouchi a weak Duelist rating of two out of eight stars, making him ineligible for a free Duel Disk. However the salesman noticed Jonouchi had a "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" and said there was a mistake and Jonouchi actually had 5 Stars, entitling him to a Duel Disk. After Jonouchi left, the salesman phoned the Rare Hunters to notify them of Jonouchi's rare card.

Jonouchi went over to Kame Game for a while to get Yugi's opinion on his new Deck. As he went home, he was approached by three Rare Hunter Ghouls. Disliking the organization he accepted a Duel with one of them hoping to take them down. Jonouchi seemed to be winning for the first few turns. However his opponent had three copies of each "Exodia" component in his Deck, which were marked with invisible ink and managed to gather the five pieces, granting him automatic victory. The Rare Hunters proceeded to attack Jonouchi and take his "Red-Eyes Black Dragon".

The tournament began the next day and Jonouchi quickly found the "Exodia" Rare Hunter outside Coffee Prart. Dark Yugi spotted Jonouchi confronting him and challenged the Rare Hunter to a Duel when he heard about what happened. Jonouchi tried warning him about the Rare Hunter's Deck strategy, but Dark Yugi refused to let himself have an unfair advantage. Jonouchi watched Dark Yugi defeat the Hunter and afterwards saw the Hunter being controlled by the leader of the Ghouls, Marik Ishtar, who told them that he had entered the tournament to collect the Egyptian God cards.

Dark Yugi won back "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" through the ante rule, but Jonouchi refused to take it back without earning it first. With a Puzzle Card, a 40 card Deck and "Time Wizard" as his rare card, he was still able to participate in the tournament. He vowed to become a true Duelist and asked Dark Yugi if he would Duel him if he did well in the tournament.

Roba
Jonouchi spotted Dinosaur Ryuzaki being defeated by Esper Roba. As Roba looked his next opponent, Ryuzaki warned Jonouchi that he wouldn't be able to defeat Roba as he was said to have ESP and was capable of predicting opponents' strategies. However Jonouchi refused to pass up on any opponent and challenged Roba to a Duel. They waged a Puzzle Card each and Jonouchi's "Time Wizard" for Roba's "Jinzo". Ryuzaki demanded to know what happened to the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". Jonouchi replied that someone stole it because he screwed-up and although he got it back, his "rival" was holding onto it for him.

Jonouchi thought that Roba used ESP to destroy his "Giltia the D. Knight" before realizing he had forgotten about the Super Expert Rules and a sacrifice had been required to play that card. Roba could tell what cards Jonouchi had, because he had his brothers spying on his hand. Jonouchi realized something was up when Roba incorrectly predicted Jonouchi's "Skull Dice" was "Graceful Dice". Jonouchi was able to use this error to his advantage in the Duel. He also figured that Roba had someone spying on him, because to an onlooker the portion of "Skull Dice" that was visible made it look like "Graceful Dice". Roba stopped relying on his brothers from that point and Summoned "Jinzo". Jonouchi used "Roulette Spider" on "Jinzo" and challenged Roba to use his alleged ESP tell the roulette when to stop such that it would attack make "Jinzo" attack Jonouchi. However he made it attack his own "Reflect Bounder", causing both monsters to be destroyed. This left Roba open for a direct attack, allowing Jonouchi to defeat him with "Baby Dragon".

Roba broke down after the Duel and asked if everyone else enjoyed looking down on him. Jonouchi told him that nobody there thought he was a loser and that he shouldn't be so hard on himself. After his brothers appeared, Roba admitted Jonouchi was right and handed him "Jinzo" and a Puzzle Card.

Haga
Jonouchi went to the Beef Buster for lunch. His Duel Disk kept hitting off the customer next to him as he ate. He refused to take it off when the customer complained, but the staff who had given him complimentary pickles told him not to bother the other customers. When he took it off, a boy working for Insector Haga swiped it and inserted the card "Parasite Paracide" into his Deck as he ran away with it. Jonouchi managed to catch the boy and met up with Anzu, Bakura and Sugoroku as he did so. The boy lied that he had only tried to steal the Duel Disk temporarily so he could win his own Duel Disk back from someone who had stolen it. Jonouchi offered to help the boy, who left to get the person who stole his Duel Disk. While the others asked Jonouchi if he could trust this boy, he said to have faith and told them about how he was fighting to give Shizuka courage. Haga, who wanted to beat Jonouchi to coax Yugi into a Duel appeared as Jonouchi's opponent. They wagered two Puzzle Cards and their rare card.

Jonouchi drew the "Parasite Paracide" during the Duel, which infected his monsters making them Insect-Type and ineligible as Sacrifices. As other consequences, he couldn't attack when Haga had "Insect Barrier" in play and his monsters strengthened Haga's "Insect Queen". Jonouchi was able to get at Haga's Life Points by using "Magic Arm Shield" to make "Insect Queen" attack her own egg and attacking another egg with "Gearfried the Iron Knight" who was immune to the parasite. Finally Jonouchi used "Graverobber" on Haga's "Insecticide" to kill "Insect Queen" and attacked him directly with "Gearfried".

The rare card that Jonouchi took was "Insect Queen". Afterwards Bakura pointed out that both cards Jonouchi won through the ante rule, "Jinzo" and "Insect Queen", were weird and scary. Jonouchi thought he was being insulted at first, but Bakura said he loved grotesque cards and wished he had them in his Deck. Jonouchi was surprised Bakura had a Deck and was afraid on hearing it was an Occult Deck.

Deck
Initially, his Deck contained only Monster Cards, allowing his opponent's to easily defeat him.

For Duelist Kingdom, his monsters were mainly tough Warrior and Beast-Warrior-Type ones. Yugi gave him the cards, "Time Wizard" and "Baby Dragon", and he won "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" from Dinosaur Ryuzaki, all of which became valuable assets.

Having done well with his Duelist Kingdom Deck, Jonouchi planned on sticking with it. However Yugi told him that wasn't a good idea and that he had already come up with a strategy to combat it, so Jonouchi constructed a new Deck before Battle City. The number of tough Warrior and Beast-Warrior monsters decreased and he added more cartoon-like Warriors and a number of luck-based cards. Throughout Battle City, he added rare cards that he won through the ante rule. He did not use his "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" after losing it to a Rare Hunter. Although Dark Yugi won it back, Jonouchi opted not to take it back until he proved himself as a Duelist.

While possessed by Marik Ishtar, Jonouchi's Deck was strengthened with a number of tournament banned Spell Cards which directly damage the opponent and destroy monsters.