Joey Wheeler

Joey Wheeler, known as Katsuya Jonouchi in the manga and Japanese version, is a Yu-Gi-Oh! character. He is known as Joseph "Joey" Wheeler in the 4Kids English anime and video games as well as the Brazilian and Portuguese version of the manga, and called Joseph "Joey" Katsuya in the Funimation Uncut English Anime. In the Swedish anime his name is Katsuya Jonouchi but they call him Jono. His name is sometimes spelled Katsuya Jyonouchi in the Japanese anime.

Joey started out as a bully, but becoming friends with Yugi Muto changes this. Though occasionally portrayed as comic relief he is essential to the plot and the series' overall theme. He is an enthusiastic duelist, who claims dueling is about fighting to help people you love.

Design


Joey's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

In the first seven volumes of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Joey's hairstyle changes drastically. Originally featuring two large fringes in front of his ears, the hairstyle changes to a sporadically arranged taper-like and unrealistic hairstyle. Joey's first color appearance depicts him with medium brown hair and black eyes. Subsequent appearances lighten the hair color to dirty blond and blond. His eyes are portrayed as brown or hazel.

In the first series anime, Joey's hairstyle does not change, and the sporadic hairstyle colored in a bright blond style is used. His eyes are brown.

In the second series anime he has dirty blond hair in the sporadic hairstyle and dark brown eyes. His usual outfit from the second series anime consists of a long green open jacket with a raised collar, a white T-shirt underneath and blue jeans. Later in the series, his green jacket is replaced with a blue denim one. He often carries a KaibaCorp Duel Disk on his left arm.

Voice/Mannerisms
In the original Japanese versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Joey does not use honorifics, which means he has a "rude" speech pattern. When talking to people he doesn't like, Joey uses the word "teme" (a rude form of "you" in Japanese, often translated as "you bastard") instead of his normal "omae" (a form of "you" that in context is used between friends, but can imply that the person being spoken to has a lower status than the speaker does if used incorrectly), especially to Seto Kaiba, who does not think highly of Joey. The speech pattern translates into the American English anime, in which it is represented by Joey (voiced by Wayne Grayson) speaking with a Brooklyn accent. He refers to himself as "The Godfather of Games" in the movie. In the Southeast Asian English dub, Joey (voiced by Dwayne Tan in this dub) noticeably lacks the Brooklyn accent he has in the American dub.

Early life
Joey and his sister, Serenity Wheeler, were seperated when their parents divorced when he was 10. Serenity was brought by her mother while Joey lived with his father. In the manga and second series anime, Serenity started to go blind.

Jonouchi became a street thug and hung in Hirutani's gang for long periods of time when he is in middle school. He often got into fights and developed great fighting skills to the point where he could beat-up a number of thugs at once. According to Jonouchi himself, he beat four punks in a fight and considered it a shame that he took one of their punches.

In the manga, Jonouchi is poor, due to his father's gambling addictions and alcoholism (which prompted his parent's divorce). Jonouchi goes 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) and going on the "Get the Million" game show. He won, but the company went bankrupt and the money became worthless. Ironically, many of his cards contain a gambling theme, and often, his strong luck helps him win in the end.

Becoming friends with Yugi
Jonouchi along with Hiroto Honda (Tristan Taylor) 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 before hand. He is sickened by how Yugi was obsessing over a puzzle and throws the piece into the canal.

Ushio suspected Honda and Jonouchi were bullying Yugi and anointed himself as Yugi's bodyguard. He beat-up Jonouchi and Honda, contrary to what Yugi wanted. 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. He retrieved the piece of the puzzle in the canal and gave it to Yugi's grandfather, to give to Yugi.

The next day at school, he answered Yugi's riddle, "something that you see, but have never seen before", saying that it's friendship and that he is Yugi's friend.

In the first series anime, Honda didn't bully Yugi, but didn't make much effort to stop Jonouchi. Yugi didn't get beaten-up by Ushio directly after sticking up for Jonouchi and Honda. Later that day, after Jonouchi recovered the piece from the canal, he heard Yugi getting attacked by Ushio. He and Honda dashed over to Yugi, Jonouchi gave Yugi the last piece and he and Honda proceeded to attack Ushio, only to get beaten-up themselves.

One shots
Jonouchi became friends with Anzu Mazaki (Téa Gardner) through Yugi. He helped Yugi out a lot, often by beating-up bullies who came their way. He fought A.D. Fujita off Yugi, as Fujita was made orchestrate a bullying scene for a ZTV director.

Jonouchi noticed how Anzu was acting odd, after avoiding walking home with them a few days. He initially assumes she's dating older men for pay, which Yugi refuses to believe. Together they investigated by secretly following her after school. They were suprised to find Anzu enter Burger World, the very place she'd told them was best avoided. They are greeted at the door by Anzu, who is working there. Anzu is intimidated, as after school jobs are against the rules, and worries that Jonouchi, being a loud mouth will tell everyone. Anzu tells the boys that she's saving money to go to New York to study dancing and Jonouchi promises not to tell anyone. Anzu gets held hostage by an escaped convict. Jonouchi is unable to assist as the customers are made lie on the floor and doesn't see that Yugi is rescueing her, as he is positioned by behind an obese man.

The Burger World incident was done different in the manga. Miho Nosaka and Honda had followed Anzu before Jonouchi and Yugi. Jonouchi and Yugi then followed the three of them, finding they had all gotten jobs at Burger World. There were two escaped convicts and Jonouchi assisted in identifying the first, by checking the customer's legs for a calf wound after they spilled a basket of toy cards, pretending it was an accident.

The Man from Egypt
Jonouchi, Anzu, Yugi and Sugoroku visit Professor Yoshimori, to comfort him over Professor Kanekura's death. However Shadi, seeking to test Yugi, redecorates Yoshimori's soul room, possesing him. Yoshimori begins to choke Jonouchi, while Jonouchi's friends try pulling him off. Anzu frees Jonouchi after walloping Yoshimori in the head with a globe.

Jonouchi distracts the zombie Yoshimori from the others, by having him chase him around the building. Once far away from the others, he turns and punches Yoshimori in the face. This knocks out the professor's teeth, but he stands back up and relentlessly chases Jonouchi.

Jonouchi reaches a dead end in the hallway, so he enters a room. Inside he sprays the professor with a fire extinguisher. Yoshimori knocks the extinguisher out of his hand. The two continue to fight and Yoshimori pushes Jonouchi out the window. Hanging three storys high, by a curtain starting to break off, Jonouchi swings onto a ledge and spots Anzu standing motionless on a board hangng over the edge up above him. He climbs up to recue her, but is followed by the professor.

As a rope suspending the board begins to snap, Jonouchi manages to hold the board and Anzu up. Seeing Yugi's friends work together and trusting each other, causes Shadi's ushetbi to break, letting his Millennium Key, slide down a rope to Anzu, returning her to normal. Jonouchi tells Anzu to climb off, while the zombie professor tries dragging him down. Dark Yugi helps Anzu and tells Jonouchi to touch the Key off the professor to return him to normal. Jonouchi complies, but also notices Yugi is acting different.

Jonouchi climbs onto the roof. After seeing everyone is okay, he calls Shadi and tells him that he is not welcome here. After Shadi leaves, Anzu asks Jonouchi if Yugi seems different to him, but after they approach Yugi, he has turned back to normal.

Jonouchi blames Anzu for knocking out the professor's teeth, although she knows that she only knocked out three of them.

Death-T
Mokuba Kaiba invites Jonouchi along with Yugi to the Kaiba's mansion, upon Seto Kaiba's request. Since they are guests Mokuba treats them to a meal. However the meal consisted of a turntable with six plates, two of which were poisoned. Mokuba lies by saying the meals aren't poisoned. Jonouchi is made spin the wheel and eat the meal that stops in front of him. Mokuba cheats by using a hidden switch in a syrup bottle, to make him eat a poisoned meal. Yugi turns into Dark Yugi and defeats Mokuba in the game making him eat a poisoned meal and relinquish over the poison to save Jonouchi.

The next day, Kaiba forces Yugi to participate in his Death-T theme park. Jonouchi says he'll help Yugi. Honda, who is minding his baby nephew, Johji, assists them too.

In the first stage, Death-T 1, they bump into Anzu, who to their suprise is working there. She tells them the rules of the stage; how they are to face three others in a shootout game. Unknown to them, Kaiba had hired professional hitmen as their opponents. Jonouchi couldn't bear Honda's plan of staying put, waiting for the other team, so he lept up on the walls of the arena and took out one of the opponent's by kicing them in the face. Honda calls his team to retreat after finding their guns have no effect on their opponents. Jonouchi suggests another one of his sneak attacks, but Honda and Johji deal with the situation after finding Anzu's gun hasn't been rigged.

The first part of Death-T 2 consisted of an electric chair ride. During the ride, Jonouchi, Yugi, Honda, Anzu and the butler, who was orchestrating the ride, were strapped to electric chairs that would go off if anyone screamed. Jonouchi tells his friends not to scream, but they yell back that he's most likely to scream. Jonouchi fainted during the ride, preventing him from screaming.

After the ride the gang entered a haunted 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 made put their hands through holes, where they got locked below a large guillotine. Yugi managed to solve the riddle to save them.

After the guillotine stage, Johji got kidnapped by the Chopman. As Johji has saved them in the electric chair ride, Jonouchi faced the Chopman to make it up to him. He was handcuffed to the Chopman inside a small chamber with weapons hanging from the ceiling and made fight to the death. Jonouchi was no match for the Chopman's strength, but after the Chopman's chainsaw got stuck in a pillar, Jonouchi made use of the time and used his lock picking skills to open his end of the handcuffs with a candlestick holder. By the time the Chopman freed his chainsaw, Jonouchi had recuffed his end to 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 wet tar covered floor, setting the Chopman on fire.

For Death-T 3, Jonouchi and his friends were lockd in an empty room. While waiting for something to happen, Jonouchi talks about how his life has changed a lot lately. Anzu draws a smiley face on her, Jonouchi, Yugi and Honda's hands. If they end up taking seperate paths in life, she tells them to remember this symbol and they'll remember being friends.

The stage began and large blocks started falling from the ceiling. Having studied dance, Anzu could follow the rythmes 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.

Upset over what happened to Honda, Yugi admits to Anzu and Jonouchi that he thinks there is another Yugi inside him. He'd been afraid to tell them, as he feared they might leave him if they knew. Jonouchi promises that even if that's true, he'll always be friends with Yugi.

Jonouchi, knowingly sees Dark Yugi, for the first time, as he watches him face Mokuba in Death-T 4. Jonouchi and Anzu are held at gunpoint by staff for this stage. After Yugi wins, they are escorted to watch him in Death-T 5, where he faces Kaiba in Duel Monsters.

Before Yugi and Kaiba's Duel begins, Jonouchi manages to phone Tomoya Hanasaki to check up on Yugi's grandfather.

After Yugi wins, the guards still have Jonouchi and Anzu at gunpoint, but Honda appears and helps Jonouchi knock the guards out.

Duelist Kingdom
After taking up Duel Monsters, it becomes clear that Joey isn't very good at the game initially, so Yugi suggests that Joey take lessons from Solomon Muto, Yugi's grandfather. The training proves rigorous, yet Joey copes and becomes a stronger duelist. He makes the top eight in the regionals. In the anime, after Seto Kaiba kidnaps Solomon and then rips up his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card (after defeating him in a duel), Joey spurs a bitter hatred of Kaiba.

Joey accompanies Yugi in the Duelist Kingdom tournament, to help Yugi rescue Solomon and so he can use the prize money, to pay for Serenity's eye operation. Yugi gives Joey one of his Star Chips allowing Joey to also enter the tournament. On the boat journey to the Duelist Kingdom, Yugi gives Joey a "Time Wizard" saying it can be useful in a tight situation. Here Joey meets Mai Valentine for the first time. At this point she claims he is not worth her time. After Weevil tosses Yugi's "Exodia" cards overboard, Joey dives in to the water to rescue them, he manages to retrieve two of the cards, before Yugi dives in to rescue Joey. Both of them are saved by Téa and Tristan, who managed to sneak onto the boat.

Still an amateur, Joey manages to beat Mai Valentine with Yugi's help and support from Téa and Tristan. He later beats Rex Raptor in a duel, where he is not allowed to accept help from Yugi. Here he wins Rex's "Red-Eyes B. Dragon" card by betting "Time Wizard".

In the anime, when the group meet Bakura, they end-up trapped inside Duel Monsters cards, by Yami Bakura. Using his friends as cards, Yami Yugi duels Yami Bakura. Joey is trapped in the "Flame Swordsman" card, but appears on the field, when Yami Yugi Summons him. Joey offers to sacrifice himself for Yugi's "Horn of Heaven" to they can stop Yami Bakura's "Man-Eater Bug". Téa, who has taken the form of the "Magician of Faith", crys over Joey's sacrifice, activating her effect, returning "Monster Reborn" to Yami Yugi's hand. Yami then uses it to revive Joey. Yami Yugi defeats Yami Bakura, after using his Millennium Puzzle to switch his place with regular Bakura. Afterwards Joey believes the events of the Duel to have been a dream.

In attempt to get revenge, he has a Duel outside of the tournament, against Seto Kaiba, where he is brutally defeated. Joey loses confidence after this defeat and briefly leaves his friends before being forced into a duel against Bonz. He manages to beat Bonz and later the Paradox Brothers in a tag duel with Yugi. Joey then qualified to the semi-finals. Pegasus then mentioned that each duelist must hold one of two entry cards or face disqualification. In order to keep Joey in the competition, Yugi gave him one of his entry cards. Although Bandit Keith steals Joey's card, Joey proceeds to defeat Keith in the semi-finals, because Mai gave Joey one of her entry cards after she loses to Yugi. In the final round Joey uses everything he learned from Yugi, throughout the tournament. Despite their friendship, neither of them hold back and Yugi wins after a close duel.(though in the manga this doesn't happen, Joey just forfeits, believing in Yugi that he won't lose) Joey remains on the sideline cheering for Yugi in the final. After Yugi defeats Pegasus, he gives Joey the prize money for Serenity's operation.

Legendary Heroes
In an anime only arc shortly after Duelist Kingdom, Mokuba Kaiba comes to Solomon's shop, Kame Game, to inform Yugi and his friends that Seto Kaiba had been kidnapped and trapped in a Virtual World. The gang went to KaibaCorp to help Seto. Joey, Yugi and Mokuba entered the MMORPG like Virtual World, where they completed tasks and met up with Mai Valentine. Mai reluctantly admitted it was her try to avoid them thinking she was their friend. While Joey is helpful in saving Kaiba, Kaiba says he wouldn't ever consider Joey a teammate.

Dungeon Dice Monsters
After Duke Devlin transfers to Domino High, Joey becomes jealous of his popularity and challenges him to a duel, where if Joey wins, Duke must shut down the game shop he'd just opened, since Solomon had been complaining about the loss of business his own game shop was getting as a result. Duke sets the stakes so that if he wins Joey must do as he says. Despite Yugi's objection, Joey and Duke duel using whatever cards they acquire in a bunch of booster packs. Duke wins and holding his end of the bargain Joey does as Duke tells him and wears a dog costume. He was later released of this embarrassment, after Yugi defeated Duke in Dungeon Dice Monsters, freeing Joey. Despite their conflicts Duke becomes friends with Joey.

Early Battle City
When Seto Kaiba hosted the Battle City tournament, he allowed duelists to enter based on a rating he'd given them. At the enrollment, Yugi was allowed to enter based on the 5 star rating he was given, but Joey was given the minimum rating of 1 star. While Joey was ranting about Kaiba, the tournament official, notices "Red-Eyes B. Dragon" listed as Joey's rarest card, so he changes Joey's rating to 4 stars saying there had been a mistake. After Joey and his friends have left, the official phones a Rare Hunter, to inform him about the "Red-Eyes B. Dragon" card.

While heading to the hospital for Serenity's operation, Joey encounters a group of Rare Hunters. One of them, Seeker, duels Joey and defeats him using "Exodia". The hunters beat-up Joey and take the Red-Eyes card. This makes him feel unworthy to be present at Serenity's operation. But Serenity refuses to take the operation until Joey arrives. Tristan manages to find Joey and talk him into coming to the hospital. Serenity is still angry at Joey for being late, but Joey manages to talk her into taking the operation.

Joey finds Seeker on the first day of the tournament in an attempt to get a rematch,but is denied, so Yugi duels and defeats Seeker instead. He wins back the "Red-Eyes B. Dragon" card and offers it to Joey, but Joey insists that Yugi keep it. Joey goes on to defeat Espa Roba, Mako Tsunami and Weevil Underwood, qualifying for the quarter-finals, and gaining new cards that boost his deck considerably. He decided early on he only wanted to defeat strong duelists to qualify, rather than do things the easy way. This led him to go as far as challenging Seto Kaiba. Kaiba declined after he is informed of Yugi's location while hunting for the Egyption God Cards. Although he is relieved about not facing Kaiba, he still acts tough and calls Kaiba a coward.

After his duel with Mako, Marik Ishtar, the leader of the Rare Hunters, uses his Millennium Rod to possess Joey and force him to duel Yugi, with both their lives on the line. They were both chained to an anchor which would drop after a time limit or when a players Life Points hit zero. Also once a player's Life Points hit 0, the opponent would be able to get a key, that could unlock him from the chains. Marik boosts Joey's deck with powerful spell cards that have Yugi and Kaiba amazed. Yugi, to show Marik how strong his friendship with Joey is, summons Red-Eyes and gives Joey his Millenium Puzzle. Yugi delibrately loses, but Joey snaps out of Marik's control and manages to force the Duel in a draw. He grabs the key to unlock Yugi's chain and dives into the water to rescue him. He is unable to the unlock his own chains with Yugi's key. In the anime, Serenity arrives in time to take the bandages off her eyes and take Joey's key and dive in to rescue him. In the manga, Kaiba simply drops Jonouchi's key into the water, so Jonouchi can unlock himself.

Joey along with his friends proceed on to the Kaiba's blimp, where the quarter-finals are held. He is paired against Odion Ishtar in the qurater-finals. At the time Odion was pretending to be Marik, while the real Marik pretended to be a boy called Namu, who earned their trust by pretending to have helped Bakura. After Odion obtains a clear advantage in their duel Serenity begins to leave, saying she cannot bear to watch, but Joey calls her back, saying that she is his inspiration and he needs her to win. Despite a comeback, Odion attempts to claim victory, but Joey accused him of not being Marik. He claimed Odion was fighting fairly and proving honorable and didn't think he was the same guy who was controlling him earlier. Odion withdraws his winning move and trys to summon "The Winged Dragon of Ra" to prove he was Marik. Since the Ra card was a counterfeit that Marik had put in Odion's Deck, the real Ra was angered and struck down both players. When this occurred, Odion's fake Millennium Rod shattered giving Marik away. Seto Kaiba announced that the first player to stand up within a time limit would be declared the winner, otherwise both players would be disqualified. While unconscious, Joey has a dream about his friends helping him to stand up and he ends up standing up for real, claiming victory. Odion then tells Joey that it had been an honor dueling him before falling into a coma.

Joey later thanks his friends, telling him they were there with him in the dream helping him stand up. In the manga he said Rishid (Odion) didn't stand up because he didn't have friends like Jonouchi did, so he didn't have that same reason to stand up. Mai asked Joey if she was in his dream. In the manga Mai was not present in his dream, but in the anime she was there along with his friends (including Ryou Bakura and Seto Kaiba). Joey lies and says that she wasn't, which infuriates Mai. She stormed off claiming she didn't need friends, while Téa pulled Joey aside to tell him off.

Mai was paired against Marik in her quarter-final. Joey attempted to encourage her from the sideline, but she was still disgusted by what he had said earlier and claimed she didn't want or need his help. In the anime Marik set the duel such that each time a player destroyed one of their opponent's monsters, the opponent would forget everything about someone they knew. This forced her to forget about Tea first, then Joey. In the manga neither player suffered memory loss, but Marik was able to create the illusion that either player would experience the same pain as their monsters. Marik was about to win the duel by attacking with "The Winged Dragon of Ra", while Mai was strapped to a wall by Marik's monsters, so Joey climbed into the arena and tried to unstrap Mai to save her from Ra's blast. He was unable to but Yami Yugi jumped in protecting both from the blast. Yugi and Joey survived, though Marik was able to send Mai to the Shadow Realm. He feels somewhat responsible for Mai’s loss. This further fueled Joey's hatred for Marik, making him want to face Marik in the next round.

Virtual World
In an anime only arc after the quarter-finals, the blimp was sucked into a hidden area where Yugi, Joey, Téa, Tristan, Duke, Serenity, Seto and Mokuba were linked into a Virtual World apparently hosted by Kaiba's stepbrother Noah Kaiba. The party was split up and to defeat members of the Big Five, who would take their bodies to escape from the virtual world and live inside that body in the real world. Joey was able to construct his deck using lists of given cards. He included a few Harpy cards remembering how Mai used to use them. He faced Johnson, who rigged Joey's lucked based cards to work in his favor. Noah threatens to disqualify Johnson, but Joey asks that the duel continue and he defeats Johnson. He later pairs up with Yugi as they duel the Big Five combined. Working together they defeat the Big Five. After Yugi defeats Noah, the party are returned to the real world.

Battle City finals
On entering the Duel Tower Island, where the Battle City finals are taking place, Kaiba continues to mock Joey and asked how he managed to enter the tournament, saying somebody must have messed up on the computer systems. Despite his hatred for Kaiba, Joey hated Marik more and used the Battle Royale Duel, which would determine who faced who in the next round in his favor to pair him against Marik.

When Joey duels Marik in the semi-finals, Marik links all monsters summoned by a player to the player themselves, so that any pain the monster feels, the controller would also feel. Joey duels suprisingly well against Marik, but when Marik summons "The Winged Dragon of Ra", he uses its effect to destroy Joey's monsters causing Joey immense pain. It appeared that Joey would not survive the blast. This even resulted in Kaiba trying to call off the duel. But when Ra had finished, Joey was still standing. He struggled to draw his next card, "Gearfried the Iron Knight". He summoned it and tried to attack for the win, but collapsed before the attack went through, leaving Marik the winner. After seeing Joey stand up after Ra's blast, Kaiba admits to himself that he was impressed by Joey's performance.

Joey remains in a coma for a while (In the English anime version, a few screenshots were cut that showed that in fact he was dead for a few minutes, and also dialoges were rearanged to show him simply as unconcious), leaving his friends worrying that he may have been sent to the Shadow Realm. He is taken care of by KaibaCorp doctors on the Kaiba's blimp, until Yugi's duel with Kaiba in the semi-finals, when Tristan drags him to the window to see Yugi's duel claiming Yugi needs him. Joey slowly regained consciousness and afterwords dashes up the Duel Tower, catching the end of Yugi's duel. After Kaiba gives Yugi "Obelisk the Tormentor", because of the ante rule, Joey challenges Kaiba to a play off to determine 3rd and 4th place. Though Joey plays rather well, managing for a short time to use Kaiba's own Blue-Eyes again him, Kaiba wins and says that dueling Joey was just a waste of time. However, Mokuba, who was one of the few spectators, is impressed by how Joey dueled his brother.

Joey cheers on Yugi in the finals against Yami Marik and returns to Mai's bed to see if defeating Yami Marik had woken her up. He cries over her body, until he hears Mai and Serenity snickering, as they pranked him into admitting he would do anything to have Mai wake up, Mai having woken up before he even reached her room.

After the gang flew back to Domino City, they said their goodbyes and parted. Later on, Joey met up with Yugi for a duel they promised each other. Joey claimed he was going to win back his "Red-Eyes B. Dragon", but the outcome of the duel was never revealed. Joey is later seen using "Red-Eyes B. Dragon". This has caused many fans to assume that Joey won.

Yu-Gi-Oh! R
In Yu-Gi-Oh! R, Jonouchi, as usual, lends Yugi a hand when Anzu is kidnapped by Yakou Tenma and KaibaCorp is taken over. Jonouchi provides his usual comic foil for the first few chapters, though he does get the key out of Tilla Mook. His first major role comes when he picks up a "Booby Trap" card that turns out to be a literal booby trap. Jonouchi (and Honda, who went in after him) is dumped down into KaibaCorp's basement where he has to face the third Card Professor, Klamath Osler, who he defeats by using "Roulette Spider" to make Klamath's own "Ant Lion Larva" attack him.

Jonouchi later encounters a laboratory run by the fifth Professor, Pete Coppermine. Impressed that Jonouchi beat Osler, Coppermine bets Jonouchi 10,000 Yen that Jonouchi could not defeat him. Through clever use of Trap Cards, Jonouchi allows his "Saint Knight Isaac" to attack twice, depleting Coppermine's Life Points with one move.

Jonouchi's next opponent before returning to the group is the seventh Professor, Mendo Cino. This duel is longer and more taxing to Jonouchi than the others, and even with the help of "Jinzo" he is not able to win easily. His victory comes when he uses "Stop Defense" to force Cino's "Guard Mantis" into Attack Position, and then striking it while it is weak. Cino, who had belittled Jonouchi throughout the duel over the fact that Jonouchi's tactics were inferior to his own, was impressed by his win and gracious in defeat.

Jonouchi's next Duel in the manga is against Reiko Kitamori, the tenth Professor. He has to intimidate her into dueling, but once he gets her angry, she proves to be his strongest opponent yet. He finally defeats her by using "Rapid-Fire Attack" to allow his "Gilti-Gearfried the Magical Steel Knight" to attack twice. After this Duel, he is picked up by Mokuba and taken to the place where Yakou is by him.

Later, he has a rematch with Bandit Keith who has The Wicked Eraser and is able to beat him by using Keith's Time Machine which Jonouchi stole after beating Keith the first time in Duelist Kingdom arc. This is Jonochi's final duel in Yu-Gi-Oh! R.

Yu-Gi-Oh! the Movie: Pyramid of Light
In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light, which takes place after the Battle City tournament, Joey and Tristan hold back a crowd of people who want to duel Yugi for his Egyptian God Cards. Joey begins dueling them to hold them back. He and Tristan later dash to Kaiba's duel dome to watch Yugi's duel against Kaiba and Anubis.

Waking the Dragons
In the Waking the Dragons arc, Joey accompanys Yugi in saving the world from Dartz and his organization, Paradius. He later finds out Mai is working for Paradius and is set on using "The Seal of Orichalcos" to strip Joey of his soul. Joey refuses to accept Mai joined under her own free will and accused Paradius of brainwashing her. Mai duels Joey in an attempt to take his soul. Joey struggles to avoid losing the duel, until his mind is taken to another world, where he pulls a sword from a large dragon sealed in crystal. Back in reality that dragon, "The Claw of Hermos" is added to his Deck. He uses to card to gain an advantage in the Duel. When it becomes apparent that Joey is about to win, Valon interrupts, using a fragment of the Orichalcos stone to remove "The Seal of Orichalcos" in order to save Mai.

Joey manages to catch the last glimpse of Yugi's duel with Rafael. he is astonished to see the symbol of the Orichalcos on Yugi's forehead, since this must have meant Yugi played "the Seal of Orichalcos". He witnessed Yugi lose the duel and watched him lose a soul. Rafael began to make his escape in a helicopter, taking Yugi's body with him. Joey chased him demanding him to give Yugi back. Rafael then flung Yugi's body back at him. After Yugi begins to show signs of life, Joey becomes excited thinking Yugi had found a way to avoid losing his soul. But Yami Yugi revealed that only he had survived while "regular" Yugi let his own soul be taken. (In the Japanese version Jonouchi punched Yami for letting this happen and this was cut from the English Version.)

Joey and Tristan get seperated from Téa and Yami Yugi, after the train they were riding split in two. Outside the train Joey and Tristan met Rex, who was now working with Paradius and looking to duel Joey. Joey refused to duel knowing one of them would lose their soul if "the Seal of Orichalcos" was played. But Raptor began to duel and left Joey no choice but to duel back. Throughout the duel Rex reveals his motive for targeting Joey. He and Weevil had been humiliated after their defeats to Joey and Yugi in Duelist Kingdom. They both suffered a mass loss in popularity and were now regarded as losers and a joke. He blamed Joey for all this, including going on to say Joey stole, not fairly won, his Red-Eyes. Joey proceeded to win the duel, causing Rex to lose his soul. He and Tristan were left carrying Rex's body through the desert after this.

Joey's Hermos card began to glow as he sees the three Legendary Dragons guide an airplane to crash land safely nearby. Joey and Tristan rush to the plane, where they meet up with Yami and and Téa, who had also seen the Dragons guide the plane. Kaiba emerged from the plane, he explained how Paradius had hacked into KaibaCorp and began taking over. Kaiba gave the party a lift to Domino City and left Rex in the care of his remaining faithful staff. The City had become overrun with Orichalcos Soldiers. After being chased by one, Joey met Valon, who took off on a motorcycle. Joey grabbed a motorcycle that an Orichalcos Soldier had caused someone to fall off of and chased Valon. After catching up, Joey dueled Valon, while Valon explained his reason for targeting Joey, had been because of how Mai had constantly ranted about him and felt eliminating Joey would be a favor to her. Impressed by Joey's dueling skills and speech about he felt dueling was about fighting for people you love, Valon came to respect Joey and saw why Mai was so interested in him. Mai appeared before the end of the duel. She told Valon off for dueling Joey because she wanted to be the one to defeat him. Joey won and Valon asked Joey to save Mai, before losing his soul.

Unable to covince Mai that she has been brainwashed, Joey said the only way he could get through to Mai was to duel her. Through the course of the duel Mai comes to remember why she had once cared for Joey. She holds back from attacking him when she is able to declare victory, but Joey still falls and the Seal of Orichalcos begins to take his soul. Mai rushes and hugs him to stop him from falling, telling him she's sorry. Shorty after Joey pushes her safely out of the Seal while his soul gets taken. Mai takes the Hermos card and rests his body next to Valon's before dashing to get revenge on Dartz. Yugi, Téa and Tristan arrive and take care of Joey's body

Joey's soul returns to his body after Yugi's duel with Dartz. Yugi returns Hermos to Joey and he helps summon monsters to defeat The Great Leviathan. After the defeat of the Leviathan, he watches as the Legendary Knights and Dark Magician Girl return to their world. The Hermos card fades away as he does so.

Grand Championship
In the anime Joey was invited to Seto Kaiba's Grand Championship tournament. He served as mainly a comic relief character in this arc. After Yugi said the card "Heart of the Underdog" reminded him of a friend, calling Joey an underdog became a running gag that day. In the first round, he defeated Solomon Muto, who entered under the identity Apdnarg Otum, to test how well he had trained Joey. Only Joey was fooled by his disguise. He was defeated by Zigfried von Schroeder in the next round.

Capsule Monsters


The Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters arc shows Joey win a trip for four to India. He invites Yugi, Tristan and Téa.

Just when the plane approached its final destination, the engines cut out and the aircraft crash lands in a mysterious forest. After Joey and his friends evacuate from the aircraft, they find a man who says his name is Dr. Alex Brisbane. When Yugi lets slip to Brisbane that he is Solomon Muto's grandson, Brisbane tells him that he's a colleague of Solomon, and on their latest expedition together he disappeared. Brisbane takes them to what he believes it to be the legendary pyramid of Alexander the Great.

Inside the pyramid, the four friends step on map, causing them to enter a strange world. Here Joey unlocks a living Baby Dragon, together they find a treasure chest, containing a clue to a trial. Joey later meets up with his friends. Together they had to complete a sreies of trials to leave. The gang meet up with Alexander the Great on occassions, where he helps them out. They also find Yugi's grandfather.

Joey later seperates from the gang. Next time they met him he was possessed and wearing Red-Eyes B. Dragon fashioned armor and he stops the party from aquiring the sword needed to complete the present trial. After Yugi brings Joey to his senses, Joey gets seperated from the armor, which turns into Red-Eyes B. Dragon. Joey then removes the real sword from Red-Eyes, which had possessed both of them.

Together the friends complete the tasks and Shadi offers Yugi power as a reward. Yugi claims he doesn't want it. They are then confronted by Alexander the Great, who wants to take the power. Alexander and his followers have a face-off against the friends, who all summon monsters they aquired throughout the trials. Yugi, Joey, Téa, Tristan and Solomon are then returned to the Pyramid.

Dark RPG
The Dawn of the Duel storyline (Millennium World in the manga and Japanese anime) saw Joey, Yugi, Téa and Tristan go to Egypt to help Yami Yugi fulfil his destiny as Pharaoh. They were greeted at the airport by the Ishtars. After Yami Yugi entered the Memory World, his friends were shocked to see he had left the Millennium Puzzle. So Shadi used the Millennium Key to open the way to the Maze of Yugi's heart to try and find the door to the Memory World. Once there, the four of them met up with Bobasa, who promised to help them. (In the manga, Bobasa escorted them instead of Shadi and stayed with them). They were able to phase through other buildings and people unnoticed and remained invisible to the majority of people, but they could not pass through the palace gates. Joey, Téa, Tristan and Yugi manage to find Yami's real name, but are unable to read the hieroglyphics. When they meet up with Yami later, they are unable to tell him his real name. Together they summon monsters to fight Zorc Necrophades, after Zorc defeats their monsters, they try concentrating, on their memory of the hieroglyphics, and are able to make them appear on a cartouche. Yami read his name Atem, from the cartouche allowing him to summon The Creator God of Light, Horakhty to destroy Zorc Necrophades.

The Ceremonial Battle
After returning to the real world, Joey offers to duel Atem in the Ceremonial Battle. This is declined so Yugi can duel Atem himself. After the duel Joey and his friends fly back to Japan. He is last seen walking into the distance with Yugi, Téa and Tristan as the series ends.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga when Jaden Yuki is thinking of legendary duelists, a silhouette of Yugi, Kaiba, Joey and Mai is shown.

In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime Joey is mentioned by name, by Pegasus. Pegasus includes Joey in his top five duelists as number three. Two being Kaiba and one being Yugi.

His name is made referenced in an episode in the English anime; when Jaden duels a lab chimpanzee, the scientist says the ape's name is Wheeler. The monkey, itself, is also a reference to Joey, since Kaiba dubbed Joey as "The Dueling Monkey".

When Jaden Yuki is taken to the past to duel against the younger Yugi, he picks up a flyer that has a picture of Yugi, Téa, Tristan and Joey.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
In the English version of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, someone mentions that Joey has a cousin called Jesse Wheeler, who makes a cameo, shortly before Akiza's debut.

Deck
Main article: Joey Wheeler's Decks

Originally, Joey's Deck is comprised of mostly Warrior and Beast-Warrior-Type monsters. He also uses luck based cards like "Question", "Graceful Dice", "Skull Dice", "Roulette Spider" in the series, mostly in the Battle City arc later on using monsters with power special effects such as "Gilford the Lightning" and "Blue Flame Swordsman". His dependency on luck (which works surprisingly well for him) started after he defeated Mai Valentine with "Time Wizard". At the start of Season Four, more of his cards focuses on strategies involving his "Red-Eyes B. Dragon", such as "Knight of Dark Dragons", "Lord of the Red", and "Star Blaster".