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Yubel is the primary antagonist of the Dimension World arc of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime. A malevolent Duel Monster whose card was in Jaden Yuki's possession when he was a child, Yubel was previously obsessed with her love for Jaden. She is later redeemed after Jaden fuses with Yubel, reuniting them forever. Since then, she has acted as Jaden's partner, similar to Yugi's relationship with Yami Yugi and other Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists.

Design

Appearance

YubelAppearanceDub

Yubel's appearance can easily be described as demonic. The most noticeable features are the sickly-pink skin, large black wings, heterochromatic eyes, which look similar to Dartz's while under the control of the Orichalcos and a third vertically placed eye. Her clothing is bizarre; one of the legs is completely covered, while the other is mostly exposed. Yubel's hair is somewhat reminiscent of Yami Marik and Yami Bakura, each contributing to one half. She also has blue lips and pointed teeth resembling those of Camula. Her entire appearance can easily be described as made up of opposites.

One side is distinctly female, with a covered breast and a rounded hip. The other looks more masculine with a pectoral muscle, no breast, and a harder, less rounded hip. In addition, the "masculine" side is paired with Yubel's original hair and eye color in the past life.

Her Duel Disk is an extension of her arm that grows out when she Duels. Her appearance symbolizes her duality, although the English dub overlooks this. Unlike the card's art, there is no additional gray clothing over the torso. In the dub, her top half is covered in black to look less revealing and more female, and in later episodes, her chest is redrawn to have two breasts instead of one, but aside from that, she looks exactly like she did in the original.

As a human, Yubel had an androgynous appearance, had light blue hair with turquoise eyes and tanned skin, and was said to be beautiful.

Personality

During her previous life as a human, Yubel seemed to be a largely stoic yet brave and noble individual, who possessed powerful romantic feelings for her childhood friend. Her feelings for him being so strong that she willing sacrificed her humanity in order to be his guardian without any regret (which was implied to excruciatingly painful), and vowed to always to protect him no matter the cost.

By the time of the modern era, however, following her transformation into a duel monster spirit, Yubel had become much more emotional and even sadistic. In addition, she also retained her profound love for the Supreme King, which was extended towards his reincarnation, Jaden Yuki. Her feelings for Jaden though had become much more possessive and overbearing by this point, as she was fiercely overprotective of him and sought to undermine anything she considered a danger to him or their bond. This included cursing Jaden’s dueling opponents whenever she felt they were “insulting” or “hurting” him by making him sad or even cry, whether it was intentional or not, as was the case with Osamu (this was expanded in the Dub, where she cursed Osamu for mocking Jaden’s talk about Yubel’s spirit calling out to him). In addition to her vindictiveness, she seemed to have possessed a sort of “know-what’s-best” attitude toward Jaden as well, being unconcerned with the loneliness she caused him to suffer through when everyone else began alienating him because she was hurting his friends, believing that he needed no other friend but her. She also fervently desired to be summoned whenever Jaden was dueling, with her spirit calling out to Jaden to do so during every duel so that she fight by his side.

After being sent into space, these dark traits were amplified when Yubel was exposed to the Light of Destruction, causing her to go insane. In the Japanese version, Yubel is not only evil and deranged but also quite psychopathic. She knows how to manipulate others to do what she wants by playing on their innermost feelings and hidden desires. Staying true to her villainous nature, she doesn't bind herself by her word: although she made a pact with Viper to bring back his son, Pierce, Yubel instead merely changed his memories so that he thought his son had never died. Yubel also throws away allies that she deems as useless as seen with Viper and Marcel also brutally hurting traitors to her as seen with Adrian Gecko.

In addition to the above, she is also quite emotionally sadistic, often enjoying picking at the insecurities of others for the above reasons or her own enjoyment and crushing/trivializing their hopes and ideals after she attempts to bond with her opponents.

Despite how much she mocks her opponents, she is actually capable of sincerely respecting them, though it's overshadowed by how much she enjoys their suffering. This is missing from the dub; she no longer cares how much suffering her opponent endures and does not respect them (in Zane's case, on several occasions she mocked his heart condition).

Yubel's ambition was to have Jaden all to herself and is willing to harm anyone that gets between her and Jaden. In fact, all of her plans revolve around getting Jaden, Even taking control of the Duel Spirit dimensions was only something that she wanted so she could have a world with Jaden. Despite her outspoken love for Jaden, Yubel has no qualms about hurting him to accomplish her goals or bend him to her will. Initially, Yubel made comments that Jaden "belongs" to her (essentially claiming him like he is her property), although she stopped making them after her reappearance. Yubel also doesn't care how dangerous the situations she manipulates Jaden into are (possibility of him dying during the Survival Duels, his journey into the second alternate dimension, etc.), because she always assumes (albeit correctly) that Jaden will survive. Yubel has further been shown to have an enormously warped and sadomasochistic view of love: because love, in part, is sharing feelings, both joy, and suffering, Yubel, therefore, legitimizes Jaden's suffering as "true love". Yubel feels she has suffered greatly due to her time in space and the crash into the Earth that caused her to lose most of her body and desires to share that suffering with Jaden. To that end, she goes out of her way to make him suffer the same fate.

To that end, she also openly welcomes Jaden's insults and defiance, seeing the pain she suffers as Jaden expressing his "love". She also claims that life isn't worth living without that person that one loves the most, actually shedding a tear at the thought. However, she appears unable to understand any other form of love and dismisses any relationships in which joy and suffering are not mutual as immaterial. The reason Yubel acquired her twisted concept of love was that during her time in space, she at first felt that Jaden had discarded her, but later came to believe his decision to make her suffer by sending her into space was done out love, likely due to coming into contact with The Light of Destruction. In the dub, she instead sees this as betrayal. She is quoted as saying to Jaden, "I was your friend. Your guardian. Your avenger. And how did you repay me? By letting them get their hands on me. You let them send me away. But destiny had a different plan, and it brought me back to you." Also of note is that in the dub, she did eventually realize that Jaden had put her through such pain to make her more powerful, and wanted to do the same to Jaden, but still resented how he had done it.

In episode 154, it is revealed that Yubel was paranoid toward those she believed would stand in the way of her love, including the "Neo-Spacians", along with Jaden's friends (in particular, Jesse Anderson, which was part of her reasoning for possessing him), in her inconsiderable belief that they have "taken my place" and have "stolen Jaden from me". Yubel also believes that the supposed "deaths" of most of Jaden's friends and manipulating his "Neo-Spacians" in harming Jaden with Yubel's effect, then destroying them mercilessly, is her way of payback, claiming that "My love for you is greater than theirs". Ironically enough, what Yubel does to those she feels animosity towards is far less harmful then how she torments Jaden. In the Japanese version, she explicitly says that she believes that the love that Jaden's past life gave her now belongs to Jesse.

In the dub, Yubel's personality underwent some major changes. All references to Yubel's "love" for Jaden were omitted and replaced by her childish desire to "play" with him. She also states that she wants Jaden to pay for "discarding her". This would indicate that her goal is to punish Jaden for her being banished into space, although this animosity isn't seen in the original version. However, she seems still to have some possessive feelings towards him, and may still try to reclaim him as her own. It's unclear, however, especially in earlier episodes Yubel showed her possessive feelings towards Jaden, but starting during his Duel with Viper, she then switched to show hate for him. Also, Yubel acted extremely childish at first, after Jaden's Duel with Viper, she started acting for more fiendish, and intelligent. Yubel also takes Jaden more lightly than in the original (when he went to Duel when she was possessing Marcel, she was surprised he made it, while in the original she expected him to make it). All masculine aspects of her appearance were edited out as well, and both in the past life and the present life, she was given an excessively feminine voice as opposed to her voice in the original. The simplification of her motives may be due to the disturbing possible implications of Yubel's associating physical and emotional pain with love, often interpreted understandably as sadomasochism. Yubel hasn't shown to be as sadistic as she was in the Japanese version and only seems to enjoy tormenting Jaden. In the English Dub version, she also uses the term "destiny" several times, suggesting the Light has had a similar effect on her it as it did on Sartorius, at least in terms of influencing the belief that all is predetermined (in the original version, she never displayed any signs of this and was merely shown to be insane).

Towards the end of the series, Yubel's spirit appears on various occasions, and it's noticeable that her personality has changed once all hatred towards Jaden and all influence from the Light of Destruction is gone, taking a more supportive role by lending her power to him. Particularly seen when Jaden is Dueling against Nightshroud, as Yubel's spirit appears to support him. Though at first she objects and sorts of mocks Jaden for how the Duel has commenced, as well as that comment made by him stating that he was alone, Yubel counters that idea made by Nightshroud, telling Jaden that isn't true as her spirit is always with him (being that their souls are fused together). She again boosts up his confidence when Nightshroud destroys "Neos Wiseman", thus telling him to remove her card from the game to bring back "Neos". As Jaden hesitate on doing this, Yubel tells him that though he will now have to fight alone, she convinces him to believe in his own power, and she also tells him that she's confident that he will defeat Nightshroud.

The reason behind her sudden change in personality can likely be linked to Jaden holding the power of The Gentle Darkness. In the movie Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time, Paradox referred to Jaden as a "Duelist with the ability to control the spirits".[1] Thus, whether or not Jaden realized it, his power might have been able to calm Yubel's soul.

She is also present for Jaden's Duel with Yugi Muto. Yubel tells Jaden that she is impressed and that she recognizes Yugi as being the True King of Duelists, as Yugi is able to sense her spirit. With the Duel advancing with him struggling as he's facing a formidable opponent, Yubel makes Jaden notice his shaking hand asking then if he is scared. As he questions this too, Yubel quickly denies this, telling him that she knows of his true feelings and emotions at the time.

Voice/Mannerisms

In the Japanese version, Yubel has two different voices that alternate evenly, though Yubel tends to use the female voice when speaking to or about Jaden. Occasionally she uses both voices, usually when its switching from one voice to another. She's been referred to as both a "he" and a "she" in the Japanese version, although she usually identifies herself with male pronouns such as "boku".

In the dub, Yubel has only a single (androgynous though somewhat identifiably female) voice prior to fully revealing herself. Additionally, Yubel's English voice is given childish mannerisms and electronic effects that reflect her own childish nature: Yubel's initial behavior in the version is that of a spoiled brat determined to get her own way and remove those who oppose her. However, later on, she behaves in a more adult manner, especially after shedding Marcel. When possessing others (in both versions), her victim's voice isn't changed (although her host's voice sounds more serious), though she sometimes uses one of her own voices in the Japanese version, while the English version she randomly uses an altered version of her host's voice. (Marcel lost his French accent, and Jesse's Southern accent was weakened, and sometimes they used the same vocal effect as Yubel). She still uses her own voice when possessing others, but she does it far less than in the Japanese version (whenever she speaks using her own voice in the English version, her host body glows purple.). It's also worth noting that in the English version, Yubel often talks in scenes where she says nothing in the Japanese version.

Abilities

From within her card, Yubel can cause harm to others in a manner similar to the card's effect.

In spirit form, Yubel holds great supernatural abilities throughout her appearances. Viper has said in the Japanese version that "it has the power to create miracles". She can possess anyone with inner darkness in their heart and manifest herself through a being made out of energy. Yubel is able to turn card effects real as seen with the snakes that stopped Jaden's friends during his Duel with Viper. After absorbing massive amounts of Duel energy, she is able to focus this power to a much greater extent, like summoning Duel spirits as real monsters to serve her or using the "Polymerization" card to create powerful duelists with a fusion of humans and spirits.

She also can also form bonds with others to share her powers with them, shown by their left arm having scales on them and displayed with Viper and Adrian, bestowing powers less potent than hers. She can also infect and control others, as shown with the "Duel Ghouls". Lastly, she has the ability to read the minds of others and by extent, the darkness of a person's heart, to manipulate people to do her bidding by exploiting their hidden desires, which is a necessity as Yubel's strength comes mainly from the darkness of others. Yubel can also teleport herself and others on a large scale, as she sent the whole Duel Academy to an alternate dimension.

As for her lesser-known abilities, she can also use telekinesis to immobilize a person, as she did to Adrian in Viper's base. She can also alter minds and memories. Yubel also has a degree of super-strength when she threw Marcel at Blair, using only one arm.

Her raw power is immense, as she was capable of opening the passage to the Sacred Beasts and subduing all three by herself, and even after being weakened in a duel against Zane, she had enough strength to fight and push back Adrian's Exodia powers while inhabiting Jesse's body, giving him no choice but to duel her.

After Yubel has her soul fused with Jaden, he also obtains access to her abilities. However, because Yubel implied most of it came from The Light of Destruction, which was purged from her when she fused with Jaden, he may not possess the same power level as before.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time, even though being still fused with Jaden, she is seen using her powers separately from him. She projected an energy blast in order to scare away people gathered at Domino City Plaza.

Biography

History

YubelPerson

Yubel in her past life, as a human.

In their previous past lives, Yubel and their best friend lived in an unnamed kingdom. The King informed Yubel that the prince would wield the power of the Gentle Darkness and that he needed a guardian to watch over him until he grew to adulthood and could control it. Yubel volunteered to be that guardian and willing underwent a painful procedure that transformed them from a human into the form they are most commonly seen in, referred to as a dragon. In the midst of the procedure, Jaden’s ancestor discovered what was being done to Yubel and attempted to prevent it but failed, resulting in the transformation’s completion. Touched by this act of self-sacrifice for his sake, Jaden's ancestor swore that he would love them and only them after the transformation (in the dub, he promised to never forget Yubel and to keep them by his side).

Yubel attacking Jaden’s friend

Yubel inflicting pain onto Osamu for “hurting” Jaden.

In the modern era, Yubel's spirit was made into a card by Industrial Illusions. The card was eventually found by the father of Jaden Yuki who gave it to his son as a present. Since Jaden was the reincarnation of the person Yubel swore to protect, and whom they remembered they had loved, Yubel vowed to protect him once again. Since she was a gift from his father, Yubel became Jaden’s favorite card, forming a close connection and bond with her spirit. Every time Jaden dueled someone, he would always attempt to summon her, due to her spirit calling out for him to do so. Yubel, however, also wished to guard Jaden against any and all perceived threats, which unfortunately included any threats to their relationship.

Yubel’s Arm

Yubel’s arm and last surviving portion of her body after crash landing back to her Earth.

During that time, Yubel caused anybody that Jaden dueled or caused him sadness to fall into a coma, the first being an acquaintance of Jaden's named Osamu, whom she cursed when he accidentally caused Jaden to fall down from the table where they dueling and hurt himself (in the Dub it was for unintentionally hurting Jaden’s feelings). This alienated Jaden as people perceived him as cursed and became too scared to Duel him, so long as he kept Yubel in his deck. Eventually Jaden realized that Yubel was the one hurting his opponents, but refused to throw her away due their bond.

Under Jaden's request, wishing that Yubel would gain the "powers of justice" that "Elemental Hero Neos" would eventually gain, in hopes that it would correct whatever was wrong with Yubel's soul, Yubel was sent into outer space by KaibaCorp in a separate satellite from his contest-winning card designs, the Neo-Spacians, but their satellite was exposed to The Light of Destruction, something that Yubel was actually meant to help their friend fight against. Calling out for Jaden's help in his dreams to no avail, Yubel was driven insane in their isolation. (in the dub, the card absorbed power from what they described as "a darker form of energy" than Neos, which made them powerful but caused extreme pain).

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

Dimension World

Yubel Eye

Yubel's initial form as "The Eye."

After an indeterminate amount of time in isolation, Yubel's capsule returned to Earth, though the shock of re-entry destroyed all but a single forearm of Yubel's body, which was eventually found by Thelonious Viper. Tricking Viper into helping them with the promise of restoring his adopted son Pierce to life, Yubel coerced him into creating the Bio-Bands and Survival Duels, absorbing the Duel energy produced by them so Yubel could reform their shattered body, and eventually take back Jaden. In the English version, Yubel's goals appear to be far more widespread; they consist of making Jaden suffer for "discarding" them, protecting him from everyone and everything until he needs to defeat a great evil, and they appear to want to take him for their own as well.

TheDevilArm

Yubel's energy form.

After Viper was defeated by Jaden, Yubel manipulated Viper's memories into making him fall off the arena when she had no further use for him (In the English version this is cut out, instead they grab his face and presumably destroys him outright with her Devil Arm). Yubel then used their newfound power to shift Duel Academy into another dimension. Yubel then possessed Marcel Bonaparte, and turned the students and staff such as Syrus Truesdale, Chazz Princeton, Vellian Crowler, Jean-Louis Bonaparte, Ishiki Erishi, the Three Masked Knights and Fonda Fontaine into Duel-obsessed zombies (known as Duel Ghouls in the dub) to help fuel their restoration, and eventually securing the Sacred Beasts and making a deal with Adrian Gecko. When Adrian confronts her over getting the scared beasts, they duel each other to see who will get the cards. The duel ends with no result due to the scared beasts awakening. Adrian tries to make Yubel continue the Duel, but Yubel reveals that he already had the four limbs of Exodia in her hand, and had "Break the Seal" resolved, she would have added the head and won. Yubel then challenged Jaden to a Duel, threatening to dispose of the Duel Ghouls if he turned the challenge down, and saying they would send everybody back home if Jaden won (although Yubel had no intention of keeping their word). Jaden then faced the Yubel-possessed Marcel, but the Duel was going badly for Jaden until Jesse showed up. Late in the Duel, Yubel leaves Marcel's body, having gained enough energy to fully restore their body to Jaden's surprise and recollection. Yubel nearly wins the Duel using "Chaos Phantasm Armityle", but is stopped by Jesse's "Rainbow Dragon" card. The monsters battling results in an explosion that consumes both Jesse and Yubel, although it's later shown that they both survived.

Yubel later reappears in the Duel Monsters Spirit World, possessing Jesse to continue their mission to destroy those who dare separate them from Jaden while Yubel simultaneously tries to unite all twelve Duel Spirit dimensions together to reign over with Jaden at their side (in the English version, Yubel states they want to unite the entire universe so that no one feels the pain and loneliness Jaden made them feel). Meanwhile, Yubel also orchestrated the events that led to Jaden's descent into darkness as The Supreme King in order for Jaden to understand Yubel's cruel ideology of love and to complete the card necessary for their plan, "Super Polymerization".

When Yubel first reappears in Jesse's body, they Duel Zane Truesdale after he willingly challenges them. Yubel uses the "Advanced Crystal Beasts", and eventually manages to Summon "Rainbow Dark Dragon", but they managed to fend off Zane from winning several times. Zane manages to Summon "Cyber End Dragon" with 16000 ATK, but loses due to the effect of "Power Bond". Despite her victory, Yubel is exhausted from the Duel and they return to their palace to recover her strength but finds that Adrian Gecko has turned against her in an attempt to unite the twelve dimensions under his rule. Yubel uses the Sacred Beasts against Adrian's "Exodia" strategy, dismantling both "Exodia" and "Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord", but Adrian removes "Chaos Phantasm Armityle" from the field and begins his efforts to add his "Exodia" pieces back to his hand. Yubel uses her own card to attack, and she succeeds in defeating Adrian by turning the spirit of Echo against him using her own power, regaining her energy as well as killing Adrian (this is changed to "sent to the stars" in the dub, though death is still heavily implied).

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" card before taking over. Jaden manages to release Jesse from Yubel's influence, but Yubel manages to force the Duel to a DRAW using "Thousand Buster" and takes the "Super Polymerization" necessary for the completion of her plans with "Last Trick". Jaden later Duels with Yubel in order to settle the problems between him and her once and for all. Throughout the Duel, Yubel was repeatedly angered by Jaden's use of the Neo-Spacians, which she felt were replacing her as Jaden's companions. By the end of the Duel, Yubel realizes that Jaden would never accept her love and that he hated her for the suffering she caused him and his friends. She then gives up her goal of ruling the Duel spirit dimensions with Jaden and instead decides to destroy the dimensions along with Jaden. In the dub, she never abandons her ultimate goals.

GX155 - Yubel unites with The Supreme King

Yubel unites with the spirit of The Supreme King.

Jaden is eventually able to forgive Yubel and vows to her he will love her for all time (in the dub, Jaden understood that she wanted to do good things from the start but took the wrong turn in the process, and promises that the two of them will fight together in the same spirit). He proceeds to fuse their souls using "Super Polymerization", ending the Duel and binding them together for all time.

Darkness

Jaden commonly uses Yubel's abilities during his encounters with Trueman, causing his eyes to change to her dichromatic colors. Yubel's presence is revealed to Jaden's friends early on, but Yubel herself does not make an appearance until Jaden Duels Nightshroud as the sole human on the planet. Yubel reminds Jaden that he is not alone and bolsters his spirit, allowing Jaden to break Nightshroud's "Darkness" combo, which Yubel mocks as a cheap strategy for a "God". Angered that Yubel has aided Jaden and by her fusion with him, Nightshroud uses "Darkness Outsider" to Summon "Yubel" to his field against Jaden. Jaden vows to get Yubel back, and he fuses her with "Neos" using "Super Polymerization" into "Neos Wiseman", which turns the Duel in his favor. Nightshroud destroys "Neos Wiseman" with "Darkness Neosphere", and Yubel encourages Jaden to use the effect of "Neos Wiseman" to revive "Neos" by banishing her, and she reassures Jaden that he is not alone.

Yubel later appears during Jaden's Duel in the past with Yugi Muto, and she notes that Yugi was able to sense her presence, while she and Jaden were able to sense the presence of the Egyptian Gods. Yubel notes during the Duel that Jaden's hand is trembling, and she asks him if he is afraid, but notes that she knows that he isn't; Jaden is having fun again.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time

Banner with Jaden and Yubel

Yubel with Jaden and Banner

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time, Yubel appears in her spirit form while Jaden is being told of Paradox's plot to eliminate Maximillion Pegasus by Yusei Fudo. After recruiting Yugi and going back thirty minutes before Paradox would attack Pegasus at the party he is to attend, Yubel uses her powers to scare away the other patrons before either Pegasus or Paradox would arrive. Before Jaden Duels Paradox with Yugi and Yusei, his eyes glow and Yubel's spirit appears behind him. She also assists him during the Duel. Later, she returns to her own time with Jaden. Her personality is more calm than it was before she fused with Jaden.

Decks

Yubel uses a number of Decks in the anime.

Duels

Opponent(s) Episode(s) Outcome
2 Obelisk Blue students (possessing Marcel Bonaparte) 122 Win
Adrian Gecko (possessing Marcel Bonaparte) 127 No result
Jaden Yuki and Jesse Anderson (initially possessing Marcel Bonaparte, later Duels as herself) 129-130 DRAW (Jesse), Lose (Jaden)
Zane Truesdale (possessing Jesse Anderson) 147-148 Win
Adrian Gecko (possessing Jesse Anderson) 149-150 Win
Jaden Yuki (possessing Jesse Anderson for most of the Duel, later briefly Duels as herself) 151-152 DRAW
Jaden Yuki 153-155 No result

Trivia

  • This character is based on 3 main villains from the first series: Yami Marik, Yami Bakura and Dartz.
    • Yubel's hair is somewhat reminiscent of Yami Marik and Zorc's avatar, each contributing to one half. Also, just like these two, Yubel is shown to be cruel and manipulative, with the ability to possess other humans as well and use them as hosts, just like Yami Marik and Zorc's avatar did. She also destroyed Professor Viper as the former 2 took lives of many other villains some also puppets of theirs.
      • Eventually, all of them are "released" and gain their original bodies after gaining enough power through their hosts.
    • Yubel is shown to have heterochromatic eyes, which look similar to Dartz's while under the control of the Orichalcos. Like Dartz, Yubel is also cold and manipulative. While dueling, Yubel has the ability to transfer the participants between times and dimensions for the purpose of telling about the past.
      • During Jaden and Yubel's last duel in Season 3, Yubel has a special monologue in the Japanese version about the "darkness in the heart", just like Dartz did during his final duel against Pharaoh and Kaiba.
      • Eventually, Yubel is redeemed by Jaden's actions, just like Dartz.
  • In all on-screen Duels Yubel participated in, she always took the first turn.
  • She is the only main antagonist that Jaden didn't beat in a final duel.

References

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