Mai Valentine

Mai Valentine, known as Mai Kujaku, in the manga and Japanese anime, is a character in the manga Yu-Gi-Oh! and the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! (known as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters in Asia).

Character design


Mai's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi. In the anime, in Duelist Kingdom, Mai wore a shortsleeve purple coat over her white tube top. From Battle City on, she changed to a sleeveless light blue vest and a white tank top and wore long white fingerless gloves. She wears a dark purple mini-skirt in the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City arcs, but in Waking the Dragons, she wears dark purple shorts and now wears purple gloves.

In the manga, in Duelist Kingdom, she largely wore the same outfit as the anime, but her top was open, revealing the middle of her chest and held together using strings, like a corsette. In Battle City, she changed to wearing a black leather vest and mini-skirt, and wore a similar tube top as her Duelist Kingdom self, but with the front closed.

In the English anime her cleavage and lines of cleavage have been digitally reduced and erased and her skirt has been lengthened.

Character biography
At the beginning of the series, Mai is a self-absorbed woman who is only set out for prize money and personal satisfaction. She once worked as a card dealer on a ship-board casino, where she first discovered the Harpie Lady Cards she would continue to use for the rest of the anime. Lost in life, lonely and without purpose, Mai's selfish attitude and outlook on life continues until she meets and finds purpose with Yugi Muto and his friends. After she meets them, she seems to start caring more for her friends and the deeper meanings of the game. Later on in the series, Mai's win become empty and her feelings of loneliness return.

Mai first appears in the Duelist Kingdom Arc. She challenges Rex Raptor to a Duel on the boat to Duelist Kingdom. She wins and evicts Rex from his luxury room by using her supposed "Psychic Powers;" in reality, Mai had actually sprayed her cards with different perfumes so she could tell them apart without looking. She then watches Yugi's Duel with Weevil Underwood and comments on how Yugi doesn't stand a chance - criticism that was clearly in contrast with Yugi's friends' encouragement. She later Duels Joey Wheeler, psyching him out with her "Aroma Strategy" while powering up her Harpie Lady. Joey Wheeler wins after exposing her "Psychic Powers" as fake. She wins a few off-screen Duels against Rex Raptor before losing to Panik, one of Maximillion Pegasus's special Player Killers - hired thugs designed to eliminate as many competitors as possible. Yugi and his friends hear her scream and rush to help her. Yugi defeats Panik and returns Mai's Star Chips. Flattered by Yugi's generosity Mai begins to change her ways and shares her food with the gang. After Yugi loses to Kaiba, Mai offers him some of her extra Star Chips claiming she owed him them. In the manga after some encouragement Yugi accepts the Star Chips. In the anime Yugi cannot accept them, so Téa duels Mai for the Star Chips. Mai begins to greatly outplay Téa, but after Téa makes a comeback, impressed by Téa's spirit and eager to repay her debt to Yugi, Mai surrenders so Yugi can take the Star Chips. In the finals, she is paired against Yugi in the first match. Taking advantage of Yugi's obvious distraction and fear of what happened in his duel with Kaiba, Mai greatly outplays Yugi, and it is only after she helps Yugi face his own fears that she is defeated. After her loss, she gives Joey one of her entry cards, to prevent him being disqualified.

During Battle City, Mai wins enough Duels off-screen to qualify to quarter finals. Before proceeding to the quarter finals she meets Jean Claude Magnum. She does not recognize him at first, but comes to remember defeating him in a Duel in the past, where he proposed to her after losing. Mai had told him to come back when he became a better duelist. Magnum holds her to that and Duels her again. This time if he wins, she marries him. Mai wins and Magnum tries to kidnap her in desperation using a hanglider. Mai nearly falls to her death but is saved by Joey. After Joey becomes unconscious in his Duel with Odion Ishtar he has a dream involving his friends which helps him regain consciousness. When Mai asks if she was in his dream, Joey said that she wasn't. This infuriates Mai and she proceeds to duel Marik Ishtar in the next round ignoring any help or support her friends try to give. Mai tales a clear advantage in the Duel, outplaying Marik and even stealing his Egyptian God Card, The Winged Dragon of Ra. However, Marik uses the powers of his Millenium Rod to take the Duel to the Shadow Realm; whenever one of Mai's Monsters is destroyed, she loses the memory of one of her friends. Her feelings of loneliness and emptiness return, despite encouragement from Yugi. Just as she is about to lose, Joey rushes onto the field, trying to stop the Duel (this is the first time romantic feelings are implied between the two). She then loses to Marik. In the English anime, she is sent to the Shadow Realm after she loses to Marik, and is subjected to brutal mental assaults by Marik. After Marik's defeat, Yugi saves her.

She is paired up with her friend, Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey Wheeler). Kazuki Takahashi, the author of Yu-Gi-Oh! deemed the show as purely 'friendship.' Many Yu-Gi-Oh! fans see this as a sign that they have deeper feelings for one another, although like all other pairings in the show, this one has not been resolved. In the Waking the Dragons series (Doma) Mai finds Valon, one of Dartz's men, who develops romantic feelings for her which she slightly reciprocates. Mai is also a role model to Shizuka Kawai (Serenity Wheeler in the English anime, Shizuka Jonouchi in the first series anime).



In the Waking the Dragons (Doma) arc of the second series anime, Mai apparently turns evil and joins Dartz's group of henchmen (Doma in the Japanese version). Reeling from her defeat from Marik in Battle City (and in the English anime, her torment from the Shadow Realm), Mai is once again in fear of losing, and now fears that she cannot rely on herself.

Even though she enters and wins many tournaments, without her friends to show her the way again, her fear of defeat still persists. The worst of it however has to do with her recurring nightmares of Marik (In the English anime, Mai dreams of Marik trapping her permanently in the Shadow Realm) that persist throughout most of the arc. At the end of her rope and with no one to help her, Valon finds her and convinces her that what she needs is not friendship, and that what she needs can be found with Dartz and the power of the Seal of Orichalcos. On Dartz's orders, Mai ambushes and defeats Pegasus, trapping his soul. Dartz fools her into believing that it was Yugi, Joey, and her other friends that abandoned her, and, after being infused with the Seal of Orichalcos and all of its power, she not only believes this lie, but she intends to defeat them as well, starting with Joey. It isn't until she sees Joey ready to pass out from their second duel during the story arc that she finally sees through all of the deception and remembers everything that they went through. With this burst of emotion, Mai breaks free of Dartz's control. In an attempt to pay back Joey and Valon, both of whom lost their souls to the Orichalcos trying to help her in their own ways, she attempts to find and take on Dartz but is ambushed and defeated by Rafael before she reaches him, resulting in the loss of her own soul. Raphael would later save her life by pulling an unconscious Mai from the wreckage of the collapsing headquarters. After Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey defeat Dartz, Mai and the rest of the souls stolen by Dartz are set free.

Following Doma, she spends the rest of the series alone and out of the picture reevaluating her life and trying to rediscover her passion for dueling. She promises to return one day to both Joey and Valon, however, in the US version, Mai and Valon's relationship seems to end, and she doesn't say whether she will go back to Joey. She is on the invitation list to participate in the KC Grand Prix but disappears. She is seen in passing a few times, including the ending credits in the Japanese version, where she is dueling alongside Vivian Wong against the Meikyū Brothers (Paradox Brothers) on top of the Great Wall of China.

She is mentioned one time in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. When Professor Banner shows the students about dueling legends like Yugi Muto and Seto Kaiba, a boy shouts from the crowd, "I like Mai Valentine." In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Maizuru Kujyaku is listed as one of the players defeated by Mukuro Enjo.

Naming
"Kujaku" means "peahen". In the English anime, Mai calls Joey by his given name, while almost everyone in the manga and the original Japanese anime calls Jonouchi by his family name. In the Doma arc she only refers to Joey as "Wheeler" his last name until the very end of their final Duel in the arc and series having finally overcome the lies she was told she refers to him as "Joey" once more. Her name in the English anime is a pun of "My Valentine".

Deck
Mai runs a Harpie Lady Deck. She focuses on multiplying the amount of Harpies she controls via cards like "Elegant Egotist" and "Nightmare Tri-Mirror". Another one of her tactics is boosting her Harpies' ATK points using cards like "Rose Whip" and "Cyber Shield". She uses this strategy frequently during the Duelist Kingdom tournament, along with strengthening her Harpie's Pet Dragon via multiplying her Harpies. During the Battle City tournament she includes more female cards such as the Amazoness monsters, and several of their support cards, like "Amazoness Archers" and "Dramatic Rescue". During Waking the Dragons her Deck is changed to a Beatdown Deck focusing on "The Seal of Orichalcos" and "Harpie Lady Phoenix Formation".

In the English anime the Harpie related cards are given more clothing and sexual references are removed.