Jesse Anderson

Jesse Anderson, known in Japan as Johan Andersen (ヨハン・アンデルサン, Yohan Anderusan), is a transfer student hailing from North Academy who enters Duel Academy in the third year. Jesse is Scandanavian in the Japanese version while he is from the South in the English version.

Excitable and energetic much like Jaden, he serves as one of Jaden's allies. Although a close friend, his disappearance serves a catalyst for Jaden's descent into darkness as the Supreme King of the alternate dimension. Jesse is later possessed by the spirit of Yubel, Jaden's favorite card in childhood, using him and his Crystal Beasts as mediators to act through.

Character design


Jesse's usual outfit consists of a blue, above waist lenght, jacket similar with darker blue outlines, white sleeves with frilled cuffs at his wrists, a white shirt and black pants. His blue hair juts in backward and down directions. He carries an Academy Duel Disk on his left hand.

Character biography
Invited along with his fellow overseas champions from around the world by Chancellor Sheppard, Jesse's the most secretive of his identity, even with those he’s supposed to be traveling with. Although he doesn’t board the ship that’s supposed to take the champions to their final destination, Adrian expects that Jesse would appear once they reached Duel Academy. He’s known simply as a "ghost" or the "mystery man" until officially introduced during the school's year-opening ceremony.

He is chosen by Viper to duel Jaden in the first exhibition match of the third year, and the two are unknowingly fitted with Bio-Bands. Just as Jesse is about to be defeated by Jaden, he suddenly reveals the name of the most powerful Crystal Beast: Rainbow Dragon. However, he later confesses that Rainbow Dragon has not yet been made into a card by Industrial Illusions, and that he wishes to find the Roman lithograph from which the concept of his Crystal Beasts was derived in order for Pegasus to finally create it.

After being drawn into an alternate dimension, Jesse and the rest of Duel Academy are contacted by Dr. Eisenstein, who tells them that the lithograph has finally been found. Securing the lithograph's excavation site, Pegasus has the "Rainbow Dragon" card made and sent to the other world via a Duel Energy-powered wormhole, opened in a battle between Jesse and Zane. Jesse later uses the Rainbow Dragon when Jaden fought Marcel, only to learn their real opponent is Yubel, the duel spirit that took control of Marcel. Jesse uses "Rainbow Dragon" to get Jaden and the others out while he remains in the alternate dimension to face Yubel, prompting Jaden and his friends to dive back into a rift left open between the worlds to get him back.



Although labeled dead by many, he later appears as merely a shadow standing on a cliff near Syrus and Ojama Yellow, but it's later confirmed that the shadow was Jesse in Ojama Yellow's flashback where it spots him. He later reappears in front of Zane and it is revealed that he is under Yubel's influence. After defeating Zane, Jesse challenges Adrian Gecko, in order to retrieve it's lost energy. Jesse is able to easily destroy Exodia in the first turn, and summon the Sacred Beasts one after the other in quick succession, before fusing them to form Armitael, Phantasm of Chaos. When his Sacred Beast strategy fails after they are all removed from play, he switches his strategy to survival, keeping Adrian's King Mist away from his life points, before being able to destroy it. After Adrian suddenly adds most of Exodia to his hand, with the last piece on top of his deck, Jesse pulls out all the stops and summons Yubel, his ace card, beating Adrian there and then.

When Jaden finally duels Yubel to save Jesse, it is revealed that Yubel actually removed Jesse's soul from his body and placed him inside the Rainbow Dragon before taking over. However, when Jaden activates the Super Fusion Spell Card, Rainbow Dragon is turned back to normal and Jesse is set free, returning to his body. But in all the action, when no one was paying attention, Yubel takes Super Fusion.

At the beginning of Season 4, Jesse returns to North Academy but will supposedly come back since he is in the intro for Season 4.

Voice/Mannerisms
In the English version, Jesse speaks with a Southern accent. He is voiced by Kanako Irie in the Japanese version.

Similar to Jaden, Jesse has possessed the ability to communicate with Duel Monster spirits since he was a child. His spirit partner is Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle, whom he affectionately nicknames, "Ruby". Although Ruby is seen most frequently by his side, Jesse considers all his monsters a part of his "family," for they themselves selected him as their master.

In addition, he tends to say "Come out!" when summoning his monsters during the Japanese duels.

Deck
Jesse plays a Crystal Beasts Deck. His monsters are based on seven precious gemstones collected from around the globe for the construction of a lithograph as evidence of Julius Caesar's reign during the time of the Roman Empire. On its return trip, the ship carrying the stones was battered by a storm, and the treasures disappeared into the depths of the ocean. Employing this concept, Pegasus specially designed and created the Crystal Beasts, which have the unique ability to retreat in a crystallized Continuous Spell form to their controller's Spell/Trap Zones when destroyed as means of avoiding complete annihilation. Due to the exclusivity of the cards, the Princeton family once attempted to purchase them using all its assets, but were rejected. Instead, Pegasus awarded them to Jesse at the end of a European tournament (in the English anime, it was a Southern Tournament). The only Crystal Beast card not given to Jesse at that time was, Rainbow Dragon, which wasn't even found until Duel Academy was sucked into the alternate dimension. However, when he gets the card, Jesse focuses his strategies around gathering all the Crystal Beasts together to summon Rainbow Dragon.

Aside from Counter Cards, Jesse's deck does not contain any other specific resources aimed towards directly destroying the cards of his opponents. He feels that a strategy of merely destroying his opponent's cards through effects is far too simple to execute, thus values battle over cunningness.

Under Yubel's influence, Jesse uses Advanced Crystal Beasts, which, like Jaden's Evil Heroes, are darker versions of his original Crystal Beasts.

He also uses the Sacred Beasts against Adrian Gecko in a seperate deck. His Sacred Beast deck focusses on cards that can duplicate themselves (such as Triangle Force, Delta Barrier, and Phantom Gunner) as tributes for the Sacred Beasts. His ace card is Yubel.