Katsuya Jonouchi

Katsuya Jonouchi (城之内 克也) is a fictional character in the manga and anime series Yu-Gi-Oh!. He is best friends with the protagonist, Yugi Mutou.

Design
Jonouchi's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi. Jonouchi's hairstyle changes throughout the first seven volumes of the original manga. Originally featuring two large fringes in front of his ears, the hairstyle changes to a sporadically arranged natural hairstyle. Jonouchi's first colored 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. His most common outfit is his blue school uniform, which he leaves unbuttoned.

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 or simply just his unbuttoned school uniform,. He often carries a KaibaCorp Duel Disk on his left hand.

In the original Japanese versions of all mediums, Jonouchi does not use honorifics, which means he has a "rude" speech pattern. When Jonouchi talks to people he doesn't like, he 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 and who Jonouchi resents for trying to kill him and his friends during the Death-T arc. The speech patterns translate into the English anime's Joey Wheeler, by having a Brooklyn accent. Coincidentally, the character of Wheeler from Captain Planet and the Planeteers is also from Brooklyn, but it is unknown if this was an intentional reference or not by those working on the English version of Yu-Gi-Oh!

As the story progressed and he wrote the character of Jonouchi, Kazuki Takahashi considered the normal Yugi and Jonouchi to be stronger characters than Seto Kaiba and Dark Yugi, defined by their great potential and their habit of never giving up and moving forward, even after a little loss.

Character


Katsuya Jonouchi, a student of Domino High School's class 1-B, is a troublemaker and his mouth often gets him into trouble. Jonouchi became a street thug and hung out in Hirutani's gang for long periods of time when he was in middle school. He often got into fights and developed great fighting skills. He also hung out with Hiroto Honda, who was not in Hirutani's gang. During high school, he used to pick on Yugi Mutou, annoyed at how Yugi would let himself get pushed around and claimed his bullying was teaching Yugi how to be a man and even offered Yugi to punch him back, although Yugi hates violence. When Yugi stands up for him in the face of being beaten up by Ushio, who intended to extort Yugi for money by being his bodyguard, Jonouchi was inspired by how Yugi had tried to help him and came to care for Yugi. Having thrown a piece of the Millennium Puzzle into the pool, he sets out to retrieve it and return it to Yugi. The next day at school, Jonouchi answered Yugi's riddle, "something you can show, but can't see", saying that it's friendship and he is Yugi's friend. Yugi grows to be a very important friend to Jonouchi, who lessens his tough-guy exterior to reveal his true nature. Jonouchi is a key character in the series and his friendship with Yugi is a powerful fixture within the story. Yugi has credited his friendship with Jonouchi as one of the main factors that allowed Yugi to become stronger throughout the series. His other three good friends are Anzu Mazaki, Hiroto Honda, and later Ryo Bakura. In the first series anime, Miho Nosaka is also one of Jonouchi's friends.

In the manga, Jonouchi is poor, due to his father's gambling addictions and alcoholism. Jonouchi goes to repay his father's debts, such as working at multiple jobs (he was one of the few that were permitted to work while going to school) and going on the "Get the Million" game show. In the second series anime, this asset of his character is glossed over.

Jonouchi has a sister named Shizuka Kawai. In the Japanese versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Shizuka's surname is her mother's maiden name, while Jonouchi's is his father's surname. Their parents divorced when Jonouchi was ten-years old. In Japanese culture, in a divorce, the eldest child goes to the father and the youngest chld goes to the mother. As a result, Shizuka was brought away by her mother, while Jonouchi lived with his father. In the original manga story and the Duel Monsters anime version, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Shizuka started to go blind, so Jonouchi entered the Duelist Kingdom tournament in hopes of winning the prize money to finance her eye surgery. Jonouchi would come second to Yugi in the event though a forfeit (in the anime, Jonouchi loses through a duel), knowing that Yugi will give him the money to finance the surgery and that Dark Yugi is the only one that could possibly handle the power of Pegasus' Millennium Item. In the first series anime, Shizuka is chronically ill in the hospital, and Jonouchi tries his best to ensure that she gets the best care in the hospital.

In the manga, as a former delinquent, Jonouchi is shown to be a master at brawling, being able to put up a good fist fight with just about everyone, especially when he has his friend Hiroto Honda at his side or whenever someone gets him angry by hurting his friends. Ever since he befriended Yugi, he had been using games as a substitute for physical violence. Eventually, he becomes interested in the card game, Duel Monsters (Magic & Wizards in the Japanese manga) and aims to be proficient at it. In terms of card games, Jonouchi starts out as a weak gamer, evident after taking-up Duel Monsters/Magic & Wizards and becoming a duelist, but becomes more powerful as he learns from Yugi and Dark Yugi; fighting to protect people he loves and his ideals. After becoming friends with Yugi, he became more righteous and would do anything to protect his friends or innocent people being taken advantage of.

In the anime version, his skill at fighting is undermined several times by characters such as Seto Kaiba (who, in the manga, is kept from being harmed by Jonouchi thanks to Yugi's friends, who hold Jonouchi back) and Bandit Keith (who Jonouchi actually beat up in the original manga).

Naming
In the Japanese version of the anime, Jonouchi's surname is romanized as "Jyonouchi", as seen on the card Yu-Jyo, while in the English manga, it is almost always romanized as "Jonouchi" or "Jounouchi", and was seen once as "Jônouchi." The uncut anime DVDs also romanize his name as "Jonouchi" (in the uncut English dub, he refers to himself as "Katsuya Joey" - this is most likely a mistake). Katsuya Jono-Uchi is seen in the French, Dutch, and Italian versions of the manga, while Jonouchi is used in the English, German, Swedish, Spanish, and Norwegian versions. The Indonesian version uses Jounouchi.

The pronunciations from the first characters of "Yūgi" and "Jōnouchi" form the word "Yūjō" (友情), which means "friend" or "fellowship". The Yu-Gi-Oh! game card, called "Yu-Jo Friendship" (the Japanese card is "友情 Yū-Jō") is named after the word and the relationship between the characters, especially Jonouchi and Yugi.

Jonouchi's kanji is incorrectly stated on one of Toei's webpages as 城ノ内克也 when it is 城之内 克也).

When Jonouchi's first name was supposed to be revealed in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1998, the author of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kazuki Takahashi, mistakenly wrote "Tomoya" instead of "Katsuya". The error was fixed in the graphic novels. The author admitted the error on the front page in Yu-Gi-Oh! Volume 7.

Notable Dueling Cards
Throughout the majority of the series, Jonouchi's deck is mainly composed of Warrior-type monsters. At first, it is composed entirely of monsters, but after he gets advice from Yugi Mutou (in the second series anime, he trains with Yugi's grandpa, Sugoroku Mutou), he adds more Spell Cards and Trap Cards to it. His signature monsters are associated with fire, such as the Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and Flame Swordsman.

During the Battle City arc, after losing his Red-Eyes Black Dragon to the Ghouls organization and subsequently given to Dark Yugi after it was reclaimed, his Time Wizard (a spell card in the manga; a monster card in the anime) becomes central to his deck, which evolves to become slightly more luck based with cards like Skull Dice (a Trap Card that takes away an opponent's monster's ATK points) and Graceful Dice (a Spell Card that increases one of Jonouchi's monster's ATK points). Such cards help in balancing his lack of access to stronger cards. He obtains the Jinzo card from the competition's ante rule, which negates all Trap Cards on the field and becomes another one of his signature cards, as does Scapegoat (a Spell Card that protects Jonouchi's Life Points from direct attack) and Kunai with Chain. Other notable cards in his deck include Gearfried the Iron Knight, Alligator's Sword, Panther Warrior and Swordsman of Landstar.

During the story arcs that are exclusive to the Duel Monsters anime, Jonouchi maintains his Warrior strategy, powering them up with a variety of Spell Cards and Trap Cards, which can be quite useful when Kaiba uses his Crush Card against him.

Monster World RPG
In the Dark Bakura's Monster World RPG campaign, his player character was named Jonouchi (called Joey in the English manga), a level 1 human warrior. His parameters were: 25 (HP), 16 (Speed), 8 (Wisdom), 20 (Strength), and 21 (Courage). When Jonouchi is given a Penalty Game by Dark Bakura, which sucks his soul into his RPG figurine, he is controlled by Dark Yugi.

Dungeon Dice Monsters
In the manga, while never shown playing the actual game, he accompanies Yugi, Bakura, and his other friends to buy the new "DDM" game (DDD in the manga, whichs stands for "Dragons, Dice & Dungeons) at the new Black Clown game shop. Hearing about the new game in the newspaper, when he bought the dice pack, he planned to sell the popular game for a high price.

In the ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice MOnsters video game, which is based on the manga, Jonouchi is given a Dice Pool that resembles his Duel Monsters/Magic & Wizards deck, focusing on Warrior-type creatures that were imported from the Duel Monsters/Magic & Wizards'' card game and real life OCG (in the manga, this game uses separate monsters). His Treasure Chest items are a reference to his Time Wizard, which contain mostly time machines.

Shadow RPG
In Dark Bakura's Shadow RPG, after Jonouchi and the rest of the gang find the true door to the Millennium Puzzle's Memory World, they enter the game world as non-player characters (NPCs) that have the objective of finding Dark Yugi's true name. Unlike NPCs such as guards and townsfolk, they are invisible, have the ability to pass through walls, and are to able to fly as if they were ghosts.

Anime-Only Appearances
Katsuya Jonouchi is alluded to in some spin-off series of the franchise taking place in the anime universe, which bears no canonicity to the manga universe.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Jonouchi never appears in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, although he has been mentioned: in the first season he is seen in flashbacks to Battle City, and early in the third season Maximillion Pegasus says to Aster Phoenix that Jonouchi is the third best duelist in the world, the first being Yugi Mutou and the second being Seto Kaiba.

In episode 179, he is seen in a poster with Yugi, Anzu, and Honda.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
In the English-language 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, a character named Jesse Wheeler, is said to be Joey Wheeler's cousin. In the original Japanese version, however, the character was unnamed.