Arkana

Arkana, known as Pandora in the manga and Japanese version, is a Rare Hunter and member of the Rare Hunters organization, who uses the "Dark Magician" card in duels. Unlike Yugi's Dark Magician, Arkana's have red and gold robes instead of purple and have slightly darker skin and silvery hair.

History
Arkana was once, as he says, "the greatest illusionist and magician since Harry Houdini himself", in love with his lovely assistant, Catherine, who was also his fiancee.

He fell into despair after a dangerous illusion he had apparently done "a million times" went awry, scarring his once-beautiful visage, which led him to wear the mask that is seen today. He was too ashamed to let Catherine see him in this state, and, in his anguish, drove her away, despite later hearing her saying that she would not have cared about his disfigured face.

Ruined and depressed for causing his love to leave him, as well as losing his career due to the incident, Arkana stumbled from day to day until he met Marik Ishtar, who promised to help him regain the love of his fiancee if he became a Rare Hunter.

Battle City
Upon assigned in the Battle City tournament to duel Yugi Muto in which the loser gets his legs chopped off by a buzzsaw (in the English version of the anime, the buzzsaws were changed to Dark Energy Disks that sent the loser's mind to the Shadow Realm upon contact), Arkana acted insanely sadistic throughout the entire Duel, much to Yugi's disgust. Furthermore, Arkana cut up his cards through the technique of "stripping" to draw them easier, and sacrificed his monsters in a cruel way to win. Eventually, because Arkana betrayed his cards, Yugi managed to defeat him. As the buzzsaw approached Arkana, he planned to use a spare key he hid in his sleeve, but Marik used his Millennium Rod to erase the key from his mind as penalty for his failure, ignoring his pleas. After Yugi saved him, Arkana realized that the promise was a lie and that, if Yugi had not saved him, Marik would have left him to die.

In the manga, upon his loss and escape from the buzzsaw, Marik saw through Arkana's memories network and saw that he considered suicide twice in his life: once after his mother died, the second was when he lost his fiancee. Marik then brought out these memories and stirred them up, so Arkana would commit suicide upon waking up.

Waking the Dragons
Arkana has also appeared in the Waking the Dragons arc, his lost soul is seen wandering the sacred circle Yami Yugi ventures through to find his other half.

Dark Duel Stories
Arkana has also appeared in the Yu-Gi-Oh! video game, Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories for the Game Boy Color. He is the fifth duelist available after beating the first wave of duelists five times. His deck contains most of his key cards from the anime and manga, although some of his more powerful cards have been taken out to make him an easier duelist. Another thing worth noting in this deck is that all of his cards are repeats, with the exception of "Dark Hole", which is Limited in this game.

Deck
Arkana plays a Magician Deck. Many of his cards are themed on magician's acts, with his signature cards being his "Dark Magicians". As a professional stage magician, Arkana also claims to know over one thousand ways to cheat at cards, and he uses those tricks to draw the cards he desires. This includes marking them or cutting them into slightly smaller sizes, as well as shotgun-shuffling them, even though it damages the cards, which he does not seem to care about.

Arkana was also willing to sacrifice his monsters through the use of "Ectoplasmer", in a ruthless, uncaring, and even sadistically happy way, in order to gain victory. Yugi claimed that Arkana's method was sick and cruel, and that it is a disrespect to his own cards; all of this was due to Arkana's deck was created solely to defeat Yugi, and Arkana has no use for it afterwards, thus preventing him from forming any bonds with his cards.

In dubbed anime using the "language neutral" cards, many of his cards were incorrectly changed, which caused the contents of his hand to change between shots, and included the additions of cards that he couldn't have possibly possessed.


 * See Also: Arkana's Deck: Mistakes in Dubbed Episodes.