Mai Kujaku

Mai Kujaku (孔雀 舞), known as Mai Valentine in the English version, is a fictional character in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and anime series created by Kazuki Takahashi. Haruhi Terada voices Mai in the animated adaptions of the series. Megan Hollingshead played her for the first three seasons of the English dub and Bella Hudson for the fourth season. She is portrayed as a beautiful and skilled duelist who has entered and won several dueling tournaments in the quest to obtain wealth and fame.

Originally showing discontent for them, she becomes friends with Yugi Moto and his group, accompanying them on their adventures. She especially grows closer to Joey Wheeler, who shows great affection and respect for her. With the newfound friendship comes personal growth for her as she deviates from the stubborn attitude she has when she is first introduced. Despite being headstrong and confident in her abilities, Mai is often plagued by her feeling of loneliness and fear of losing. These are used by several antagonists in the anime to turn her against Yugi and his friends.

Mai's deck is centered on the usage of "Harpie Lady", which she holds as the most prized card in her deck. She uses several magic cards to raise the monster’s attack power and bolsters it with sister cards such as the Harpie Lady Sisters and Harpie’s Pet Dragon. Her strategies allow her to keep this card on the field during many of her duels. Aside from the "Harpie Lady" cards, she owns other female monster cards, many of which are warrior types.

Design
Mai’s is designed as a beautiful female who uses her charm and appearance to win favors from men. She has long blonde hair and purple eyes. She wears tight and semi-revealing clothing. During the first season, Mai’s attire consisted of a purple jacket, a white corset acting as a shirt, a purple skirt and knee-high boots. In seasons two and three, Mai keeps her skirt and boots, but changes her outfit to a light purple vest and a corset of different design while adding purple fingerless gloves. During season four, Mai’s attire changes dramatically to consist of darker colors, showing her change of heart. She dons a dark purple vest and matching hot pants with a matching corset acting as a shirt and black studded fingerless gloves. In her last appearance in the series, she returns to the season two attire.

Character
Mai is introduced as a selfish and arrogant duelist who only participates to win wealth and fame. She is often very cynical about dueling, claiming that a duelist only has himself to trust and count on. This cynicism leads her to cheer against Yugi Moto and Joey Wheeler during the first half of the season. After Yugi wins her star chips back from Panik, an eliminator who kidnapped and strong-armed her into dueling, she has a change of heart and begins to consider Yugi, Joey, Téa Gardner and Tristan Taylor as friends. She returns the favor by offering her extra star chips to Yugi following his defeat in his last duel with Kaiba. She later shows personal growth when she tries to knock Yugi out of his gaze. She reveals she has learned from her last duel with Joey about how a person can learn from their defeats than their victories.

Mai continues to follow Yugi and the others on their adventures in season two. During this season, she develops a strong bond with Joey. Aside from giving him her entry card to qualify for the finals at Duelist Kingdom, she rescues his sister Serenity from the danger of the Rare Hunters. She acts as her big sister, comforting her during Joey’s duels. After Joey woke up from his coma during his duel with Odion, he tells everyone about his dream of all his friends helping him up. She asks if she was in that dream and he responds with a nervous “no”. She doesn’t take this well as she adopts an “every man for himself” attitude. During her duel with season two’s primary antagonist, Marik Ishtar, she ignores her friends’ cheers and continues proclaiming that she can duel on her own.

She reveals during the duel that she was alone as a child, living with wealthy parents who did not give her any attention. Upon obtaining a job on the cruise, Mai discovered Duel Monsters and became close with the "Harpie Lady" cards, regarding them as the closest things to friends she had. All of this displayed her true weakness: her fear of loneliness. Near the end of the duel, her individualist attitude is gone and she welcomes the help and support of her friends. As everyone parts ways following the end of the Battle City tournament, Joey confronts her about his true feelings as he fought for her during the tournament.

In season four, Mai undergoes several personal struggles. Despite maintaining a winning streak in many tournaments, she fails to rank in the same class as Joey, Kaiba and Yugi. This causes her to feel inadequate and alone. In addition to this, she starts having nightmares about Marik and her time in the shadow realm. This makes her malleable and easy to convince, which allows Dartz to easily recruit her as one of his minions. Mai becomes cold and hard-hearted, wanting nothing but vengeance and power. Despite this, she is still plagued by the fear of losing. After winning her last duel with Joey, she realizes the error of her ways and that he was the only one that truly cared for her.

Season One
Mai is introduced to the series as an arrogant but expertly skilled duelist. She meets Yugi and Joey on the boat to Duelist Kingdom, while learning of how Joey was able to qualify for the tournament. While on the boat, she uses her looks to trick duelist Rex Raptor into allowing her the use of his exclusive room. She then uses her “psychic” powers to win a game in which the victor earns rights to the room. After approaching the island, Mai establishes herself as a skilled duelist, eliminating several other competitors. She then challenges Joey to a duel, during which she reveals her true intentions for winning the contest. Joey responds to this, calling her selfish. She uses her “psychic” powers to throw Joey off and win a huge lead, while his lack of knowledge inhibits his strategy. Despite falling behind, Joey musters up the courage to press on, discovering Mai’s true nature of her psychic powers, and wins the duel.

The defeat caused Mai to lose interest in dueling, prompting her to seek revenge on Joey. She uses Rex Raptor for her plan to exact revenge on Joey in exchange for a rematch, adding the condition that Yugi does not help Joey during the match. During the duel, Mai berates Rex on several occasions, prompting him to add an ante rule to the game, with the winner acquiring the loser’s best card out on the field. Joey ultimately wins with his card out on the field, Time Wizard, and takes Rex’s best card, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Later in the day, Mai meets up with Yugi and his friends, assisting them in nourishment as they have no food. During the dinner, she starts up trouble, declaring that “Any duelist in my way will be eliminated” and storms off. While thinking to herself, she is kidnapped by an eliminator, Panik, and is challenged to a duel. He defeats and takes her remaining star chips. Yugi comes to her aid and challenges Panik to a duel in which he would win back her star chips. Despite his tricks and traps, Yugi wins the duel and Mai’s chips, re-qualifying her for the tournament. With that, she becomes indebted to him and they become friends.

Following Yugi’s defeat to Kaiba, she appears at the castle with enough star chips to qualify as a finalist. She also earns extra starchips, which she uses to return the favor to Yugi. He remains locked in a daze and does not respond. This angers Mai and she begins to leave before Tea Gardner challenges her to a duel for the chips. Having the advantage of being an experienced duelist, she wins a lead over Tea while berating her attempts to prove friendship as a driving force behind Yugi and Joey’s victories. Tea eventually gains enough strength to overpower Mai, despite her having the Harpie’s Feather Duster face down. She surrenders the duel, claiming that she does not have the cards to win. This in turn leads to Yugi questioning Mai about her motives. She responds, “Some cards aren’t worth playing”, referencing Yugi’s tough decision in his duel with Kaiba. After entering Pegasus’s castle and witnessing Kaiba’s duel with him, she is selected to duel Yugi in the final match ups. The night before, she preps her deck for the match, knowing that Yugi and Joey have seen many of her strategies and learned of her tricks.

As the duel begins, she is reminded of her promise to Yugi to play honorably and she assures him that she will made good on it. During the match between Mai and Yugi, Mai display her true dueling talents, using a card combo that increases her Harpie Lady’s attack power, weakens Yugi’s monsters and prohibit them from attacking. Despite obtaining near victory, she is left disillusioned by Yugi’s uncharacteristic dueling errors, suspecting that he is not fighting up to his full ability. She pressures him to battle with all his strength and overcome his fears, using Joey’s duel with her as an example. He eventually comes around and makes a surprising comeback, ruining Mai’s strategy and forcing her to surrender. He thanks her for making him own up to his problems and they promise to duel again in the future. Mai leaves the castle after giving Joey her tournament-entry card in response to seeing him on the floor, depressed and hopeless as he is looking for his stolen tournament entry card. She feels sympathy for him after learning of his true intentions for winning the tournament and tells him to win, while telling herself that they are friends.

After Duelist Kingdom ends, Mai is recruited by KaibaCorp executives to test out the new game. She meets up with Yugi, Joey and Mokuba in the disguise of Madame Butterfly, the town’s greatest duelist. They leave the duel before concluding it, escaping the wrath of the angry virtual townspeople. They journey to the Castle of Dark Illusions to rescue Kaiba from being sacrificed for the summoning of the Mythic Dragon. Despite a sacrifice not being conducted, the executives summon the dragon and force Yugi, Joey, Mai and Kaiba to battle. Mai is defeated in the battle trying to defend Yugi’s monster, Black Luster Soldier, from being destroyed. She is later revived by Princess Adina, revealed to be the Mystical Elf, after Kaiba and Yugi destroy the Mythic Dragon. She awakens with the others in the real world, completing their mission.

Season Two
Mai rejoins with Yugi and his friends at Battle City, a tournament organized by Seto Kaiba in an attempt to regain his title as the world’s greatest duelist. She wins several off-screen duels, advancing ahead of Yugi and Joey in the tournament. She eventually wins enough locator cards to gain entry as a finalist in the tournament. She meets up with Duke Devlin, Tristan Taylor, and Serenity Wheeler after seeing them run from the Rare Hunters. She finally speaks to Serenity after learning about her from Joey and Tea. She drives them to the pier, where Yugi and a possessed Joey are dueling, Tea is trapped in a dangerous predicament, and Kaiba and Mokuba are bystanders. After the duel ends, the group makes their way to the tournament site. While they travel to the site, the group cross paths with famed martial arts actor Jean-Claude Magnum. He claims that Mai won a duel against him and that he proposed to her out of amazement of her abilities and strength. She refuses and responds, “Ask me again when you can beat me in duel monsters.” Holding her to that promise, she agrees to duel with him for her hand in marriage. He reveals himself to be a top-ranked duelist and is one card away from qualifying as a finalist in the tournament. Despite the stakes being high, she proceeds to duel him. She wins a slight lead over him before becoming overwhelmed by his army of ninja-themed monsters. Despite this, she uses the support from her friends to help her regain control of the duel and win. Magnum does not respond well to his loss and has a stuntman dressed in his monster’s costume to kidnap her. She fights back to the extent of almost falling to her death. She is then rescued by Joey and tells Magnum to go away.

The group reached the site of the tournament and the tournament proceeds. After witnessing Joey’s duel with Odion, disguised as Marik Ishtar, Joey tells his friend of the dream he had following the strike to the head from the carbon copy of the Winged Dragon of Ra. She approaches him and asks him whether she was in his dream or not. Following his hasty response, she becomes cold to the idea of friendship, disassociating herself from the others. She presents a standoffish attitude that she carries throughout her duel with Marik, ignoring the support she receives form her peers. During the duel, Mai maintains control over Marik, prompting him to bring her to the Shadow Realm. While there, her fear of being lonely is exposed and exploited as her weakness. The rule of the game is that when a monster is destroyed in battle, the owner of the destroyed monster loses one person from their memory. During the course of the duel, she loses the memory of Tea and Joey. Despite this, she continues to remain dominant in the duel until she summons the Winged Dragon of Ra (she acquired this as an effect of her Amazoness Chain Master). It is then revealed that he led her on to summon the monster, knowing she did not have full knowledge of how to control it. Using his knowledge of the card, he takes control of the Egyptian god card and wins the duel. Before losing the duel, Mai is released from the shadow spell by Joey’s insistent support. She loses her mind to the shadow realm and suffers from memory loss. She is looked after by several of Yugi’s friends, including Serenity and Ishizu Ishtar. She is freed from the shadow realm following Yugi’s victory over Marik in their final duel, awakening in season three. She leaves wishing Yugi, Serenity and Joey the best for the future.

Season Four
Mai continues dueling in tournament and becomes victorious in her last tournament. Despite her victories, she fails to register in to the same level as Yugi, Joey and Kaiba. Falling into a depressive state, she begins having nightmares of Marik sending her to the shadow realm. One night, her depression reaches its peak one night when she declares that she is done with dueling. That night, she encounters Valon and is challenged to a duel. She loses, becoming easily influenced by Valon, and is persuaded to join Dartz in his quest to revive the Leviathan. He provides her with a powerful deck and recruits her to gather souls for the revival. She meets up the gang, saving them from an attack by a gang of bikers. They later arrive at Industrial Illusions headquarters, where Mai is waiting for them to arrive. She challenges Joey to a duel, claiming him to be the reason why she can never achieve greatness. During the duel, Mai reveals her reasons for joining Dartz and that she captured Pegasus’s soul after winning a duel with him. She over powers him with her new deck composed of stronger magic and trap cards. Like his previous duels, Joey makes a comeback in the duel, nearly depleting her of her life points. She begins to exhibit nervous behavior before losing the duel, reliving the nightmares that she had. Valon sees this and jumps in, using his Orichalcos stone to break the seal and end the duel. Valon, Mai and Raphael disappear afterwards.

Mai later states that she could have won the duel if Valon did not intervened. She remains headstrong and unyielding to demands, running off to find Joey and duel him again. Valon chases after her, trying to convince her that they are one and the same. Duke and Rebecca see them and challenge Valon to a duel. He uses it to try and impress her. Despite coming out victorious in the duel, she leaves, claiming that she works alone. She reappears near the end of Joey and Valon’s duel. Witnessing Valon lose the duel and his soul, she becomes saddened at seeing him go. She then challenges Joey to a duel. She overpowers him during the duel, but he makes strong comebacks, despite his fatiguing state due to his previous duel. She eventually wins the duel due to Joey’s increasingly deteriorating health. Her compassion for him allows her to break free of Dartz’s control. Mai then leaves to challenge Dartz to a duel to avenge Joey, but runs into Rafael. He challenges her to a duel and wins, taking her soul. She reappears as a knight monster under Dartz’s control in the final duel between Dartz and Yugi. Mai is released along with the rest of the souls following the destruction of the Leviathan. She leaves behind Valon along with her Cyber Harpie Lady card. She promises to return one day to make amends for all the wrong actions she has committed and to finally confront Joey.

Season Five
Mai does not appear to have an active role in Season Five. She only appears as a spectator to Yugi and Leon Wilson’s duel.

Deck
Mai uses a deck centered around one card, the "Harpie Lady". Her strategy during the first season consisted of utilizing several magic cards to raise the "Harpie Lady"’s attack power and trap cards to protect her from attacking monsters. The most notable magic cards she used were "Cyber Shield", "Rose Whip" and "Harpie’s Feather Duster". Mai’s strategy also involved the summoning of the "Harpie Lady Sisters", known in the episode “First Duel” as multiplying Harpie Lady, made possible by the effect of the card "Elegant Egotist". In the episodes “Duel Identity (Parts 1 and 2)”, Mai played her "Harpie's Pet Dragon" for the first time. This card was used to accompany the "Harpie Lady" while gaining 300 attack points for each one on the field. She also used "Mirror Wall" to block the attacks of Yugi’s monsters while halving their attack points. She also used "Shadow of Eyes" to lure his monsters into attacking, activating the effect of Mirror Wall and making them susceptible to straight forward attacks. In the episode “Legendary Heroes – Part 2”, Mai is revealed to have a Dark Witch in her deck.

During season two, Mai’s deck takes the focus off of "Harpie Lady" and involves the use of "Amazoness" cards. These include "Amazoness Swordswoman", "Amazoness Fighter", "The Unfriendly Amazon" and "Amazoness Chain Master". Except for "The Unfriendly Amazon", the "Amazoness" cards Mai uses have an attack power of 1500. She also uses support cards, such as "Dramatic Rescue" and "Amazoness Spellcaster", to bolster the attack power of her monsters and protect them from attacking monsters. These cards were used in her duel with season two’s primary antagonist, Marik Ishtar. She also uses "Cyber Harpie Lady", a form of "Harpie Lady" equipped with Cyber Shield, in her duels and continues the use of "Elegant Egotist" to summon the "Harpie Lady Sisters".

In season four, Mai places her deck’s focus back on her "Harpie Lady". Following her allegiance to Dartz, she acquires several magic and trap cards that bolster Harpie Lady’s attack power. These cards include "Aero Nail", "Harpie Lady Phoenix Formation", "Harpie Lady Sparrow Formation" and "Nightmare Tri-Mirror". These cards had several destructive features such as destroying all monsters on the opponents field and negating attacks. She also acquired the "Seal of Orichalcos" magic card, which raises all her monsters attack power by 500 points. Mai continues to use Cyber Harpie Lady and the magic of "Elegant Egotist" to summon the "Harpie Lady Sisters". She also begins using "Harpie’s Pet Dragon" again, utilizing its effect of gaining attack points from every Harpie Lady on the field. This strategy is aided by the use of Harpie Lady and "Nightmare Tri-Mirror", made notable in episodes “My Freaky Valentine – Part 1” and “Fighting For a Friend – Part 5”.