Joey Wheeler

Katsuya Jonouchi (城之内 克也 Jōnouchi Katsuya) is a fictional character in the manga and anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! He is known as Joseph "Joey" Wheeler in the English anime and video games as well as the Brazilian and Portuguese version of the manga.

Character design


Jounouchi's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

In the first seven volumes of the original manga, Jonouchi's hairstyle changes drastically. Originally featuring two large fringes in front of his ears, the hairstyle changes to a sporadically arranged and unrealistic hairstyle. Jonouchi'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, Jonouchi'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
16-year old Jonouchi, who is in class 1-B at Domino High School, is a hothead and his mouth get him in trouble often times. Joey starts out as a street thug and hangs in Hirutani's gang for long periods of time when he is in middle school. 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 Joey's friends. 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.

In the manga, Jonouchi is poor, due to his father's gambling addictions and alcoholism. 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.

Jonouchi's skill at Duel Monsters is somewhat near as good as that of Yugi's, but he still duels as part of a tag team on occasions and he strives to improve his skill. This is a frequent subplot throughout the series, although it was muted somewhat in the English anime. Joey is referred to by Pegasus in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX as, in Pegasus's opinion, the third-best duelist in the world, behind Yugi and Kaiba.

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. Serenity 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 would come 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.

Voice/Mannerisms
In the original Japanese versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Jonouchi 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 Jonouchi. 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, Jonouchi's deck is comprised of mostly Warrior-Type monsters. As the series progresses, Jonouchi begins adding more and more types of cards to his arsenal. 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 Kujaku (Mai Valentine) with "Time Wizard".