Mai Valentine

Mai Valentine (also known as Maj Kujaku) is one of the principal characters from the ''Yu-Gi-Oh! ''series.

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, Tea 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.