Joey Wheeler

Joey Wheeler, known as Katsuya Jonouchi (城之内 克也 Jōnouchi Katsuya) in the manga and Japanese anime, is a fictional character in the manga and anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! 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 and new video games.

The pronunciations from the first characters of "Yūgi" and "Jōnouchi" form the word "Yūjō" (友情), which means "friend" or "fellowship". The card, called "Yu-Jo Friendship" (友情 Yu-Jyo in Japanese) is named after the word and the relationship between the characters, especially Joey and Yugi.

Character design


Joey's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

In the first seven volumes of the original manga, Joey's hairstyle changes drastically. Originally featuring two large fringes in front of his ears, the hairstyle changes to a sporadically arranged 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. He often carries a KaibaCorp Duel Disk on his left hand.

Charcter biography
15-year old Joey, who is in class 1-B at Domino High School, is a hothead and his mouth gets him in trouble often. Jonouchi starts out as a street thug and hangs in Hirutani's gang for long periods of time when he is in middle school.

He along with Tristan Taylor (Hiroto Honda) used to bully Yugi at school and went as far as throwing a piece of Yugi's Millennium Puzzle into a river. Tetsu Ushio anointed himself as Yugi's bodyguard and beat-up Joey and Tristan, despite Yugi's hatred of violence. After Yugi tried to stop Ushio from attacking Joey and Tristan, which resulted in Yugi also being beaten-up, Joey came to care more for Yugi. He retrieved the piece of the puzzle the river and gave it to Yugi's grandfather to give to Yugi.

He becomes best friends with Yugi Mutou, who melts his tough-guy exterior to reveal his true nature. His other two good friends are Hiroto Honda (Tristan Taylor) and Anzu Mazaki (Téa Gardner). In the first series anime, Miho Nosaka is also one of Jonouchi's friends.

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. Ironically, many of his cards contain a gambling theme, and often, his strong luck helps him win in the end.

Joey has a sister named Shizuka Kawai (Serenity Wheeler in the English anime; Shizuka Jonouchi in the first series Yu-Gi-Oh! anime). In the Japanese versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Shizuka's surname is her mother's maiden name while Joey's is his father's surname. Their parents divorced when Jonouchi was 10. Shizuka was brought away by her mother while Jonouchi lived with his father. In the manga and the Duel Monsters anime, Shizuka started to go blind, so Jonouchi entered the Duelist Kingdom tournament to finance her eye surgery. Joey came second to Yugi in the event, although Yugi gives him the money to finance the surgery. In the first series anime, Shizuka is chronically ill and in the hospital. Therefore Jonouchi ensures that she gets the best care in the hospital.

After taking up Duel Monsters, it becomes clear that Joey isn't very good at the game initally, after losing to Yugi once and Téa four times, so Yugi suggests that Joey take lessons from Solomon Muto, Yugi's grandfather. The training proves rigerous, yet Joey copes and becomes a stronger duelist. His training ends after Solomon is kidnapped by Seto Kaiba, who then rips up, Solomon's "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card after defeating him in a duel. At this point in the anime Joey begins to have a bitter hatred of Kaiba.

When Yugi is invited to enter Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom tournament, Joey jumps at the chance to help Yugi, after seeing the prize money, which he could use to pay for Serneity's eye operation. Yugi gives Joey one of his Star Chips allowing Joey to also enter the tournament, while putting himself at a disadvantage.

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 to have no interest in him. After seeing Weevil toss Yugi's "Exodia" cards overboard Joey dives in to the water to rescue them, he manages to retrieve two of the cards, before Yami Yugi dives in to rescue Joey. Both of them are saved by Téa and Tristan, who managed to sneak onto the boat.

Still an amatuer, 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 attempt to get revenge, he has a duel outside of the tournament, against Seto Kaiba, where he is brutally defeated. Because of this defeat where his Red-Eyes Black Dragon was easily destroyed by it's stronger dragon brother, Blue-Eyes Joey loses his confidence 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 gives him one of his entry cards. Although Bandit Keith steals Joey's card, Joey proceeds to defeat Keith in the semi-finals and Mai gives Joey one of her entry cards after she loses to Yugi. In the final round Joey uses everything he learnt from Yugi, throughout the tournament. Despite their friendship neither of them hold back and Yugi wins after a close duel. 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.

Shortly after Duelist Kingdom in an anime only arc, 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 reluctanly admitted it was her to try avoid them thinking she was their friend. While Joey is helpful in saving Kaiba, Kaiba says he wouldn't ever consider Joey a teammate.

After Duke Devlin transfers to Domino High, Joey becomes jealous of his popularity and challanges 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 buisness his own game shop was getting as a result. Duke sets the stakes so that if wins Joey must do as he says. Despite Yugi's objection, Joey and Duke duel using whatever cards they aquire in a bunch of booster packs. Duke televizes the event, in the hopes of humiliating Joey. Joey manages to substantially lower Duke's Life Points each turn, keeping his own untouched, but Duke manages to take out all of Joey's Life Points in one turn. 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.

When Seto Kaiba hosts the Battle City tournament, he allowed duelists to enter based on a rating he'd given them. When Yugi and Joey went to enroll. 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 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 the Rare Hunters, Seeker duels Joey and defeats him using "Exodia". The hunters take Joey's Red-Eyes card and beat him up. 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 mangaes to talk her into taking the operation.

Joey finds Seeker on the first day of the tournament in attempt to get a rematch, but Yugi duels and defeats Seeker instead. He wins back the "Red-Eyes B. Dragon" card and offers it to Joey, but he insists that Yugi keep it. Joey defeates Espa Roba, Mako Tsunami and Weevil Underwood to qualify for the quarter-finals. He said he only wanted to defeat strong duelists to qualify, so nobody could accuse him of doing 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. Although he is relieved about not facing Kaiba, he still acts tough and calls kaiba a coward. Marik Ishtar, the leader of the Rare Hunters uses his Millennium Rod to take control of Joey's mind and forces 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 was able to get a key, that could unlock them from the chains. Yugi attempted to delibratly lose, 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 a 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 dived 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. Téa, Tristan and Serenity all rush to Joey's room, since they weren't issued ones since they weren't competitor's. Joey attempts to kick them all out, except for Serenity.

He is paired against Odion Ishtar in the qurater-finals. At the time Odion was pretending to be Marik, while the real Marik pretened 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 retaliates from defeating Joey 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, Ra had been angered and struck down both players. While this occured 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 unconcious, Joey has a dream about his friends, who help him stand up, claiming victory. Odion 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. She became enfuriated after Joey told her she wasn't. 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 disguisted 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 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 protect Joey from the blast. Yugi and Joey survived, while Mai was sent to the Shadow Realm. This further fueled Joey's hatred for Marik, making him want to face Marik in the next round.

In an anime only arc, 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 deafeats 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.

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 has 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 coma for a while, leaving his friends worry 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. After dashing up the Duel Tower he catches the end of Yugi's duel. After Kaiba gives Yugi "Obelisk the Tormentor", because of the ante rule, Joey challanges Kaiba to a play off. Kaiba wins and says that dueling Joey Wheeler was just a waste of time.

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 crys over her body, until he hears Mai and Serenity sniggering, as they pranked him into admitting he would do anything to have Mai wake up.

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.

In Season Four, another anime only 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 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.)

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. 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. The two duel with Joey still pretty beaten up from his last duel. 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 saftly 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 defaet 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.

In the Grand Championship arc, another anime only storyline, 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.

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, bit 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 destory Zorc Necrophades.

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.

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 English anime's Joey Wheeler having a Brooklyn, New York accent. In the movie, he refers to himself as "the Godfaddah of Games."

Deck
Originally, Joey's deck is comprised of mostly Warrior and Beast-Warrior-Type monsters. He also uses luck based cards like "Question", "Graceful Dice", and "Skull Dice" 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" and "Lord of the Red".