Reed Pepper

Reed Pepper, known as Michio Mokota (, Mokota Michio) in the Japanese version, is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime. He is a student from Cuisine Duel School, who is arranged to Duel Yuya by Nico Smiley. Despite already having qualified for the Junior Arc League Championship, Michio agreed to Duel against Yuya for fun as he defeated The Sledgehammer. He is a famous young chef and Duelist whose recipes are popular with housewives.

Appearance
Reed is a young man with orange hair, featuring a red bang that hangs down at the front. He also has pale skin and freckles. His main feature is that his eyes are shown as being shut or squinting, only opening them when being dramatic or in shock. Reed's outfit consists of a white undershirt covered by a light pink shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark blue waistcoat and red tie. He also wears cream pants with a yellow pattern going round each leg alongside brown shoes.

Personality
On the surface, Reed seems to be a kind person, but is actually arrogant. He looks down on his opponents, possibly due to defeating students from LID Top Class. He refers to Yuya as a light meal as a means to belittle him. As the Duel continues, his lack of respect comes from the fact that he sees everything he does as perfection, ranging from his Action Duel performances to his cooking. During the Duel, Yuya's mother threw Yuya a pancake sandwich that was made by altering one of Reed's "perfect" recipes, which he didn't appear to like. His personality seems to come from his mother's coddling. After being defeated by Yuya, Reed realized the errors of his ways after remembering that his father disagreed with his outlook on perfection.

Voice/Mannerisms
Reed has a habit of relating everything to meals and cooking, often saying that his Dueling strategy is a "perfect recipe" or saying that he'll make a "light meal" of Yuya during the Duel.

Etymology
It's possible that Michio's name is based on Mokomichi Hayami (速水もこみち, Hayami Mokomichi) who hosts a cooking corner named MOCO's Kitchen in the morning show ZIP! that airs on Nippon TV in Japan. His English name is a corruption of red pepper.

Pre-Arc League Championship
Reed was set up to Duel against Yuya Sakaki by Nico Smiley. The Duel was set in Reed's specialty field, "Action Kitchen", where he not only had the advantage due to his knowledge of the field, but also unintentionally due to Yuya skipping breakfast. He brought out his "Royal Cookmates" and when Yuya Pendulum Summoned, used the effects of his monsters to destroy Yuya's monsters. Yuya continued to have trouble until his mother arrived with one of Reed's recipes that she'd wrapped in her own pancakes. Reed was angered that his recipe had been improved, attempting to defeat Yuya there and then, but Yuya's replenished energy from the meal allowed him to grab an Action Card to save himself. Reed was still able to destroy Yuya's monsters when he Pendulum Summoned again, but this allowed Yuya to use his "Illusion Balloons" to bring out "Performapal Elephammer" and attack the now-wide open Reed. Accepting that his recipe and Dueling weren't perfect, Reed congratulated Yuya after his win, saying that he'd see him in the Junior Arc League Championship.

Arc League Championship
Reed made it to the second round of the Junior Arc League Championship, and when Dipper O'rion, his second-round opponent, didn't show up, Reed won the round by default and advanced to the Top-16. He joined the other contestants, save Shay, in the LID Center Court, where he learned that the next round would be a Battle Royal with the goal of betting and collecting Pendulum Cards. Reed went to the Jungle Area of the "Wonder Quartet" Field Spell, where he encountered Teppei Tairyobata, who offered an alliance. Although he knew that Teppei was up to no good, Reed agreed in order to test his skills, and he defeated both Halil and Olga. Mieru Hochun then approached him, seeking help for Yuya, and Reed immediately agreed to help out. He assisted Teppei and Gong Strong in holding down Yuya, who was in a berserk state, and Reed asked how it had happened. Gong replied that he had no idea, and Mieru used her fortune-telling skills to see that there was another soul inside Yuya, in addition to a darkness that was attempting to overwhelm them both. Yuya later woke up, and Reed made him soup from Teppei's fish to recover. The next morning, Reed cooked the group breakfast, but the praise heaped upon him caused Mieru to run off to look for ingredients. Reed then learned about the invaders from Fusion Dimension Duel Academy, and he and Teppei split up from Yuya and Gong to look for the other contestants.

They soon found an unconscious Mieru in the Iceberg Area, and Reed convinced Teppei to take her to a safe place. Unfortunately, the accidentally wandered into the Volcano Area where Shay, Tsukikage and Selena were Dueling members of the Obelisk Force, the invaders that Yuya had described. Seeing the group in a pinch, Reed and Teppei rushed to their aid, despite Teppei's protests, but they suffered the 2000-LP intrusion penalty that was still in effect. Recovering quickly, Reed brought out three "Royal Cookmates" and passed the turn to Teppei, who combined his "The Legendary Fisherman III" with Reed's cards to deal 2000 damage to each of their opponents. They congratulated themselves for their strongest combination, but this had inadvertently set the stage for the Obelisk Force to activate a combo of Continuous Trap Cards that dealt 2000 damage to three players. Reed was defeated first, blasted off his feet and into a wall, and he was sealed into a card by one of the Obelisk Force.

Deck
Reed uses a "Cookmate" Deck, primarily focused on accumulating cards underneath his "Food Cemetery" which he then uses in combination with "Wonder Recipe" to continuously Special Summon his "Royal Cookmate" monsters while locking his opponent's Summoning methods down as well as inflicting large amounts of damage. He also uses cards such as "Meal Ticket Abuse" and "Law of Food Conservation" to support his strategy further. He uses cards like "Metabolic Storm" and "Monster Pie" to inflict large amounts of effect damage to his opponent.