Joey Wheeler

Joey Wheeler aka Katsuya Jonouchi in the manga, and Japanese version. In the Funimation Uncut English version he is call Joseph "Joey" Katsuya. He is a main character from Yu-Gi-Oh!. His #1 best friend is Yugi Muto/Yami Yugi, while Tristan Taylor is his second best friend. He gets along with Tea and Mokuba as well. Just like caring for his little sister, Serenity, Joey also cares about Yugi's grandfather as well. Since Yugi's grandfather taught Joey how to play Duel Monsters, and about the cards true meaning (The Heart of the Cards). Joey even cares about Mai Valentine, and would go through great lengths to save her. He is shown to have a huge dislike for Seto Kaiba, and has made Kaiba his #2 rival for this reason.

Background
Joey was born on the day of January 25th as the first child and only son of his family. He lived with both of his parents and little sister during his early childhood, when he learned that his little sister was born with a really bad serious eye sight. Joey decided to protect her, and want through many great lengths to figure out ways on how to make his sister's eye sight get much better. During his childhood, he would take his little sister to the beach, so they can play there, and so she can see how beautiful it is. He even promised to her that he would bring her back there again. But sad Joey and his sister, Serenity Wheeler, were separated when their parents divorced when he was 10 years old. Serenity lived with her mother while Joey lived with his father. Due to Joey being separated from Serenity since she left with their mother, Joey has never said a word to his mother after that. Joey then 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 Tristan Taylor, who was not in Hirutani's gang. Joey lived in poverty, due to his father's gambling addictions and alcoholism. So Joey went to great lengths to repay his father's debts, such as working at multiple jobs. He was the "lone paperboy" in middle school, meaning that he was one of the few that were permitted to work while going to school.

In a flashback by Joey, sometime before he entered Domino High, it was reveal that he saved a little boy from getting beat up by a gang. Tristan came to his aid and both of them beated up the thugs. After the fight, Tristan offer Joey a hand, but Joey angrily asked Tristan why was he butting in his business, and that he could have handle the whole gang himself. Joey then told him that he appreciate's his help but didn't need to be baby. (In the Japanese version, Joey angrily told Tristan that he could have beaten up the whole gang on his own, and that he didn't need Tristan's help). It turns out that Tristan only did what he did because he was a true friend who would never abandon Joey.

When Joey and Tristan entered Domino high school. He and Tristan used to bully Yugi Muto at school. At one point Joey took a piece of Yugi's Millennium Puzzle and threw it into a swimming pool from a window outside of their classroom. However when Ushio started beating up Joey and Tristan, Yugi stood up for them, saying they were his friends. Joey was inspired by how Yugi had tried to help him and came to care for Yugi. He retrieved the piece of the puzzle in the pool and gave it to Yugi. Yami Yugi then punished Ushio with a Penalty Game. Joey then became Yugi's best friend after this incident, and decided to hang out with Yugi more. Due to this incident, Joey and Tristan would also start to protect Yugi from bullies. Joey also became good friends with Tea Gardner after this incident.

Yugi and Joey once visited Burgerpalooza, only to find Tea working there. She feared that if they told, she would get expelled as it's against school rules to have part time jobs. (In the English version, she worried about getting fired, as they could have revealed that she was under 18, the required age to work there.) She splattered their burgers in ketchup, warning them not to tell. They told her that they did not even know she worked there, and they promised her that they wouldn't say a word about her job. She admitted that she was working there to raise money so she can go to New York City to study ballet dancing, because she wants to become a great dancer. But Joey and Yugi admired her dream of being a dancer, and didn't tease her about it. Which shocked Tea overall.

Personality
Joey started out as a bully, but becoming friends with Yugi Muto changes this. Joey can seem gullible, and is portrayed as not that smart, he is heroic, loyal, good natured, funny, friendly, brave, selfless and loving. Though occasionally portrayed as comic relief, he is essential to the plot and the series' overall theme. He is an enthusiastic duelist, who firmly believes that Dueling is about fighting to help people you love. Like Seto Kaiba, Joey deeply cares for his younger sister, Serenity Wheeler and will do anything to make her happy. He seems to be very protective of Serenity, which he shows once by sacrificing his own life in order to ensure her safety. He often gets freaked out or offended easily; he responds rather impulsively to insults, especially remarks about his outward appearance, such as his hair or his outfit, or his Dueling skills. In the English version, he also gets upset when people compare him to an animal, such as a monkey or a dog.

Years later after the ceremonial battle, Joey's expression reflects the maturity he gained from his battles in the original story. He loves driving his new motorcycle but gets careless while using it. He has a job, but has to wear animal suits to give out stuff to customers. However he gets more annoy that Kaiba keeps making new Duel Disks, and that he won't be able to buy one.

The first syllables of Yugi and Jonouchi's names form Yujo, which is Japanese for friendship, symbolizing the bond between the two characters. The card "Yu-Jo Friendship" is based on this connection.

Appearance
Joey's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

In the first seven volumes of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Joey's hairstyle changes drastically. Originally featuring two large fringes in front of his ears, the hairstyle changes to a sporadically arranged taper-like and unrealistic hairstyle. Joey's first color 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.

In the first series anime, Joey'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. Later in the series, his green jacket is replaced with a blue denim one. He often carries a KaibaCorp Duel Disk on his left arm.

A few months after the ceremonial battle, Joey's hair style remains the same. But he has spikes on the back of his hair. He also wears the same school uniform but now rides a motorcycle to get to school.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist Manga
Joey along with Tristan used to bully Yugi at school. Joey was 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. After he and Tristan swiped the box containing the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle, Joey was told off by Tea and left the room. However he managed to secretly take a piece of the puzzle beforehand without Yugi even knowing.

While walking in the hallway, Joey said he was sickened by how Yugi was obsessing over a puzzle and how Tea had called them bullies. They then bumped into Ushio, who asked what they were saying about bullying. Joey tried telling Ushio to stay out of it, but he was restrained by Tristan. As Joey has trouble breathing, Tristan insisted to Ushio that it was nothing. After Ushio left the hallway. Tristan lets go of Joey, and explained how influential and powerful Ushio was. Upon hearing this, Joey vowed to get back at Ushio. He then showed Tristan the piece of the puzzle that he had taken, and threw it into the school pool.

The next day, Ushio beat-up Joey and Tristan under the suspicion that they were bullying Yugi. Yugi tried to stop Ushio, saying they were teaching him how to be a man, and was not bullying him. That resulted in Yugi also be beaten-up. Joey was inspired by how Yugi had tried to help him, and came to care for Yugi. Later that day, he retrieved the piece of the puzzle from the pool. While wearing his soaked clothes. Joey came to Yugi's house, and gave the puzzle piece to Yugi's grandfather by introducing himself. He told Yugi's grandfather to give to Yugi, however he told Yugi's grandfather to not reveal that it was him that found the puzzle piece. Joey also told Yugi's grandfather that a bully beated up Yugi, and made Yugi owe him money. Joey then told Yugi's grandfather the bully's name, and then leaves.

The next day at school, the two boys meet up and saying that they're injuries are fine. But Joey tells Yugi he has something to show him, which makes Yugi excited by asking him what it is. Joey then answered Yugi's riddle, "something you can show, but can't see", saying that it's friendship and he is Yugi's friend. After hearing this from Joey, this makes Yugi happy. While getting embarrassed by thinking he said something cocky, Joey runs off telling Yugi they will be late for class. But Yugi runs after Joey telling that he is forgetting his shoe.

When Joey saw a ZTV van outside their school, he began to spread rumors about there being a star at their school. He suspected that they were disguised as a student and planned on unmasking them to make a fortune. However Yugi was skeptical of there being a star, so Joey left him to find that star by himself. Later he spotted Yugi being beaten by Fujita. He quickly broke up the fight and found out that it was a staged bullying scene for a documentary, Caught on Camera: School Violence. When he confronted the director, the director reminded him that he was being filmed, so Joey was reluctant to attack. However the director attacked Joey when he told the cameramen to stop filming.

Later having looked into it, Joey admitted that there was no star at the school, which Yugi was surprised he hadn't given up on until now. Joey instead vowed to become the star of the school himself. He noticed something was bothering Yugi, who hadn't told him he was being forced to sell tickets to Sozoji's concert. Yugi insisted that he was fine. Joey and Tristan then proceeded to lift up Tea's skirt using a t-square, which earned him a punch in the face by an angry Tea.

Joey noticed how Tea was acting odd, after avoiding walking home with them a few days and discouraging them from going to from Burger World. He initially assumed that she was dating older men for pay. Therefore he and Yugi secretly following her home after school to find out what she was really doing. They were surprised to see her enter Burger World and she greeted them at the door, in a waitress uniform. Tea was intimidated, as after school jobs were against the school rules, and worried that Joey, being a loud mouth would tell everyone. Tea told the boys that she was saving money to go to New York to study dancing and Joey promised not to tell anyone. Soon after Tea got held hostage by an escaped prisoner. Joey was unable to assist as the customers had to lie on the floor and couldn't see that Yami Yugi was rescuing her, as he was positioned by behind an obese man.

Joey told Yugi that he was down on his luck, claiming to have gotten hit once in a fight against four punks. He attended a service hosted by the alleged psychic Kokurano in the hopes of curing his bad luck. Seeing that it was mostly girls at the service, he pretended Tea dragged him there, when he was the one who insisted on her and Yugi coming. Kokurano simply told Joey that he was having bad luck and didn't offer him any advice.

When coming up with ideas for their classes fundraiser in the school festival, Joey suggested that they put on a cabaret, staring the girls from their class, which was immediately rejected. The class decided on a Carnival Games booth. Joey worked on making the barrel for the life size version of Bluebeard's Attack and planned on teasing whoever was to play the role of Bluebeard. However since Joey was the right size for the barrel and Yugi had specifically made the head to fit Joey, Tea gave Joey the role. When Goro Inogashira attempted to steal the class' spot, Joey tried to fight him, but got stuck in the barrel and was easily knocked back by Goro. On the day of the festival, Joey played Bluebeard and Tea thought he had fun.

Later on Tristan fell for their fellow classmate, Miho Nosaka and despite Tristan's objections, Joey enlisted Yugi to help them find a gift for Miho. Yugi took them to his family's game shop where they get a love jigsaw puzzle. Together they hid the gift in Miho's desk. However Miho didn't find it until Ms. Chono performed a desk check. Chono started to assemble the puzzle and read its message out to the class. She intended to punish the sender, but Yugi, Joey and Tristan all claimed responsibility. Yami Yugi turned the jigsaw into a Shadow Game, Dark Puzzle, so that Ms. Chono felt the pain she inflicted on others by working on the puzzle. This caused her ugly make up free face to be exposed, causing her to flee the classroom, without punishing Tristan and his friends. Afterwards Tristan asked Miho out directly, but she declined. Joey then offered to buy him a hamburger to cheer him up.

While having had his eyes on a pair of Air Muscle shoes for a long time, Joey took Tristan and Yugi to the Junky Scorpion shop, to buy a pair. The owner refused to sell Joey the shoes unless he puts his foot inside one of the shoes, while there was a scorpion inside. Joey did it and found out that there really was no scorpion inside; it had just been a test and the owner sold him the shoes for half price. Shortly after leaving the shop, Joey, Yugi and Tristan were ambushed by a group of thugs, who stole the shoes. The three boys tracked down the thugs afterwards. With Joey and Tristan beating them up, and they learned that the store owner paid them to get back the shoes. By the time Joey and Tristan returned to the shop, Yugi already had gotten the shoes back and the owner was being rushed to the hospital for scorpion stings. While being Unaware that he changed to Yami Yugi and defeated the owner in coin in sneaker, Yugi returned the shoes to Joey, with a hole in one, which Joey considered a battle scar.

Later on Joey took up Duel Monsters, having been introduced by Solomon and Yugi at their shop, where Solomon showed them his rare card, the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon". Joey made plans to play Duel Monsters at school the next day with Yugi, just before Seto Kaiba arrived. Learning that Kaiba plays Duel Monsters, Joey invited him to join them, but Kaiba ridiculed his cards and told him to come back after collecting at least 10,000. The next day at school Joey was defeated by Yugi and asked him for a rematch, unintentionally distracting Yugi from approaching Kaiba, who just stole the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card.

Hirutani blackmailed Joey into rejoining his gang by threatening to beat-up Joey's classmates if he didn't. This caused Joey to be away from home for two days without leave, and consequently missed a day of school. Tristan became suspicious when he noticed Joey was absent, as he couldn't recall Joey ever missing school beforehand. Soon after Joey and the gang were spotted mugging someone outside the American Club, prompting Yugi to rush over and plea with Joey to leave the gang. Joey denied knowing Yugi and didn't react when one of the gangsters punched Yugi. Later at J'z, Joey attacked the gangster for hitting Yugi earlier. However Hirutani then orders the rest of the gang to seize Joey, and take him to the torture chamber. At the chamber, Joey had his hands tied above his head and was beaten by the gang. They electrocuted him with stun guns to the point where he couldn't speak. Hirutani orders the gang to continue to shock him, despite concerns that it could kill him. However Yami Yugi arrived and stopped the gang by defeating them in Landmine Search Network, which saved Joey's life. Joey then regained consciousness as Yugi was right next to him.

Yugi invited Joey, Tea and Tristan to the Egypt Unearthed exhibition at the Domino City Museum. Joey was worried about getting cursed, since they found a mummy. He also became worried that Yugi might be cursed when Tea asked didn't Yugi's grandfather say that the archaeologists who uncovered the Millennium Puzzle died mysterious deaths. One the day of the exhibition Joey told Yugi off for wearing his school uniform on the weekend and was shown around by Professor Yoshimori.

When news broke of Curator Kanekura's death, Joey, Tea, Yugi and Solomon visited Professor Yoshimori at the university to comfort him. However Shadi, seeking to test Yugi, had possessed Yoshimori by redecorating his soul room. Yoshimori acted strange and began choking Joey, while Joey's friends tried pulling him off. Tea freed Joey by walloping Yoshimori in the head with a globe.

Joey then distracted the zombie Yoshimori from the others, by having him chase him around the building. During the previous Shadow Game, Yami Yugi faced an illusion of Joey created by Shadi. They were to play the Game of Death, where each player was to try and force their opponent to walk over the edge and fall to their death. The illusion displayed the traits Joey had when he was bully. Yami Yugi refused to take his turns, as it was possible that he was facing the real Joey, while thinking that he was possessed by Shadi. Yami Yugi's trust in Joey, caused the illusion to disappear, rather than force him off the edge. The real Joey was shown trying to still get away from the zombie professor.

Among Joey's efforts to snap the professor back to normal, he punched him the face, knocking out more of his teeth and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher. Eventually, Yoshimori pushed him out a third floor window. Joey managed to get onto a ledge and spotted Tea, who was being used in the Trial of the Mind Shadow Game, by standing motionless on a board hanging over the edge up above him. He climbed up to rescue her, but was followed by the professor. Still hassled by the professor, Joey held onto Tea's board as its supporting rope began to break. Seeing Yugi's friends work together and trusting each other, caused Shadi's ushebti to break. Therefore letting his Millennium Key slide down a rope to Tea, by returning her to normal.

Joey and Yami Yugi helped Tea to safety. While Yami Yugi told Joey to touch the key off the professor to return him to normal. He complied, but also noticed that Yugi was acting different. After seeing that everyone was okay, Joey told Shadi he was unwelcome here. Right after Shadi left, Tea asked Joey if Yugi seemed different to him, but after they approach Yugi, he had turned back his normal self. When Yoshimori noticed some of his teeth were missing, Joey tried blaming Tea for the incident.

When Digital Pets became popular, Joey purchased one, which his friends mocked how ugly it had become. When he connected it with Yugi's pet, U2, to exchange data, Joey's pet proved to be a bully as a kicked U2, but they became friends shortly afterwards. Their classmate, Kujirada had a hidden character pet, which Joey tittered at for being uglier than his. The next day at school, Joey left his pet unattended, during which Kujirada fed it to his own pet. As Kujirirada tried feeding more pets to his own, it was defated by U2, who had become stronger due to its data transfer with Joey's pet.

Joey was introduced to the American comic Zombire by Tomoya Hanasaki. He, Yugi, Tea and Tristan were all invited to Hanasaki's house to see his Zombire collection afterwards. Among their antics, Joey got a fright when Hanasaki's father entered wearing a Zombire mask and assembled a figure not knowing Hanasaki had wanted to keep in its box unopened. As they left Hanasaki forgave Jonouchi for assembling the figure, which he now thought was better assembled, and Hanasaki's father begged them to stay friends with Hanasaki. After assuring him that they would, Joey told him that Hanasaki wasn't as fragile as his father thought.

Later on Joey went with Yugi to the arcade hoping to beat "KAI" in at least one of the national high scores. He heard from other kids at the arcade, that the "KAI" high scores belonged to Seto Kaiba and that there was a rumor Kaiba was working on building the ultimate game. Joey failed to beat Kaiba's score on a racing game and after watching Yugi play Virtual VS for a while. He went to buy a coffee and a cola for himself and Yugi. However when he returned, he found Yugi had been beaten-up and his Millennium Puzzle was stolen.

Joey tracked down the thief, Street Fighter who offered to give back the puzzle, if Joey could beat him in a fighting game, Game of Death. The rules involved each player holding a knife in their mouth that would stick into their throat if punched in the face. Joey asked that his opponent not use a knife, as he didn't want to hold back punching him in the face. Joey fought with his hands in his pockets and found it difficult to dodge his opponent's punches in the alley. He told his opponent that he had promises in each of his pockets. He revealed one of the promises was Yugi's cola, which he sprayed in his opponent's eyes after it had been shaken, and that the other was the promise to "clobber" him and punched his opponent in the jaw. Joey then took back the Puzzle to give to Yugi.

Shortly afterwards a limousine pulled up beside Yugi and Joey to which a chauffeur explained that Seto Kaiba requested to see Yugi at his mansion. Yugi and Joey both got inside the limousine and Joey was surprised to hear that Kaiba was president of KaibaCorp. When it was discovered that Kaiba was unable to see them, Mokuba Kaiba asked the butler to prepare the "special course" meal for them. Yugi and Joey were disappointed to find that it consisted of childish meals and Mokuba suggested that they make a game out of it by spinning the turntable and eating the meal that stopped before them. However Mokuba lied when Joey asked if the food was poisoned. Therefore Mokuba cheated by using a hidden switch in a syrup bottle, to make Joey eat a poisoned meal. Yugi turned into Yami Yugi and defeated Mokuba winning the antidote to save Joey.

Joey and Yugi stayed the night at Kaiba's mansion and were greeted by Kaiba the next morning. Joey initially got mad over what Mokuba did, but Kaiba brought them to the grand opening of his Kaiba Land theme park as special guests. They and many other children were given free access to all the attractions, leading Joey to believe he had misjudged Kaiba. However Kaiba showed them a special show, where he Dueled and defeated Solomon Muto. After which, he forced Yugi to take part in Death-T, the theme park of death, before releasing Solomon from the simulation capable of driving humans insane. Joey insisted on accompanying Yugi in Death-T, as did Tristan who was babysitting his nephew, Johji, in the audience.

In the first stage, Death T-1, they bumped into Tea, who to their surprise was working there. She told them the rules of the stage; how they were to face three others in a shootout game. However unknown to them, Kaiba had hired professional hitmen, Johnny Gayle, Bob McGuire and "name unknown", as their opponents. Joey couldn't bear Tristan's plan of staying put, by waiting for the other team, so he leapt up on the walls of the arena and took out Gayle by kicking him in the face. Tristan called the team to retreat after finding their guns had no effect on their opponents, while their opponents were armed with lethal guns. Joey suggested another one of his sneak attacks, but Tristan and Johji dealt with the situation after finding out that Tea's gun hadn't been rigged.

However Joey's bravery vanished as they entered the Horror Zone for Death T-2. The first part of the stage consisted of the Electric Chair Ride, during which, Joey, Yugi, Tristan, Tea and Kaiba's butler, who was orchestrating the ride, were strapped to electric chairs that shock their sitter if they screamed. Joey advised his friends not to make a sound, but they yelled back that he was most likely to scream. The participants were subjected to various terrors during the ride. These caused Joey to faint, preventing him from screaming. The gang were saved as Johji caused the butler to scream and consequently electrocute himself.

After the ride, the gang entered the Murderer's Mansion and the doors locked behind them. Joey's attempt to pick the lock was mocked by Johji, as there was no use going back the way they came. The gang had to put their hands through holes, where they got locked below a large guillotine. Yugi managed to solve the necessary riddle to save them.

After the guillotine substage, Johji got kidnapped by the Chopman. Since Johji had saved them in the Electric Chair Ride, Joey faced the Chopman to make it up to him. Under Kaiba's death threat, Johji handcuffed Joey to the Chopman. The two had to fight to the death inside a small chamber with weapons hanging from the ceiling. Joey was no match for the Chopman's strength, but after the Chopman's chainsaw got stuck in a pillar. While the Chopman tried to free his chainsaw, Joey looked for something to pick the lock on the handcuff. Yugi pointed him to a candlestick and then briefed him in on a plan to defeat the Chopman. Joey picked open his end of the handcuffs with the candlestick holder. By the time the Chopman freed his chainsaw, Joey had attached his end of the handcuffs the door and left the candle hang loosely off it. Before noticing this, the Chopman gave the chain a tug ripping out the door, therefore allowing Joey to escape. The candle hit the oil covered floor, setting the Chopman on fire.

For Death T-3, Joey and his friends were locked in an empty room. While waiting for something to happen, Joey talked about how his life had changed a lot lately. Tea drew a smiley face on her, Joey, Yugi and Tristan's hands and explained that if they wound up taking separate paths in life, they should remember this symbol and they'll remember being friends. Yugi broke down and cried that if it wasn't for him, they wouldn't be in the mess they were in. Outraged, Joey grabbed Yugi by the collar, demanding that he never say that again, as they were a team. The stage began and large blocks started falling from the ceiling. Having studied dance, Tea could follow the rhythms the blocks were falling at and guided the group away the blocks about to fall. After the room filled up, the gang were able to escape through a hole high up on one of the walls. While the everyone else made it through, Tristan got stuck and told the others to go on. A block sealed the gap they escaped through preventing them going back to Tristan.

Upset over what happened to Tristan, Yugi admitted to Tea and Joey that he thought there was another Yugi inside him. He'd been afraid to tell them, as he feared that they might leave him if they knew. Joey promised that even if that's true, he'd always be friends with Yugi. Joey and Tea, knowingly saw Yami Yugi for the first time as, Yugi switched to him, before facing Mokuba in Capsule Monster Chess in Death T-4.

Joey and Tea were held at gunpoint by Kemo and another KaibaCorp guard during Death T-4. After Yami Yugi won, they were escorted to watch him in Death T-5, where he faced Kaiba in Duel Monsters. Before Yugi and Kaiba's Duel began, Joey swiped Kemo's phone and called Tomoya Hanasaki, who was at the hospital, to check up on Solomon. During the Duel, Yami Yugi imagined Joey, Tea and Tristan were with him before drawing his last card. When he won, the guards still had Joey and Tea at gunpoint, but Tristan, who had been saved by Mokuba, appeared and helped Joey fight the guards off. One of the guards managed to get back on his feet and hold his gun to Joey's head. However Mokuba told him to stop down and explained that he saved them because he owed Yugi a favor.

As they left Kaiba Land, Joey got word from Hanasaki who said Solomon's surgery was a success. After realizing that Yami Yugi had switched back to Yugi, Joey was about to ask him a question, but then decided not to.

At school Joey, Tristan and Yugi played the Achievement Test Bingo Game when the results of their achievement tests were posted. Joey lost by having not got any lines on his card, and had to buy three hamburgers for Yugi and two for Tristan. The guidance councilor, Tsuruoka, spotted them making a game of the test results and pointed out how they scored among the lowest of the four hundred who took the test. He confiscated Yugi's Lovely Two love compatibility tester and threatened to break it while calling the three of them "unskilled slackers".

However Yami Yugi emerged and claimed they had skills Tsuruoka could never match. This resulted in Tsuruoka imposing a game, Find the Keyring! where he hid the Lovely Two and gave them one hour to find it or be expelled. Joey and Tristan fetched some digging equipment in case Tsuruoka had buried the device, but Yami Yugi deduced he had hidden it inside. Eventually Yami Yugi discovered the device was somewhere on Tsuruoka's body and used Tea's Lovely Two to get Yugi's to make a reaction noise proving it was there. Joey and Tristan pounced on Tsuruoka and discovered he was wearing a wig and his device was inside it.

Joey sent in an entry form to participate in ZTV's The Get the Million Game. He decorated his form with rainbow colors to make it stand out. The studio did a background check on him and found that his father was an unemployed alcoholic, whose had gambling debts that Joey was working to pay off. The producer thought Joey's sob story, and struggle would be perfect to boost ratings, and he was selected to appear on the show. Joey succeeded in the first two stages of the game, Darts of Fortune and The Electric Helmet. The final stage The Wheel of Fate had been rigged to lose, but Yami Yugi had discovered this, and played Red Paint Lottery, which prevented the game from being fixed. Joey succeeded and won the million yen. However the studio went bankrupt before Joey cashed the check.

Joey purchased a Monster Fighter figure; "Killer Emaada" at Kame Game and used it in a a game against Yugi, which he lost. The two of them brought their fighters to school the next day, where Joey lost another game to Yugi and got plenty of other students interested in the game. After Yugi's fighter got stolen by Koji Nagumo, he borrowed Joey's "Killer Emaada", which Yami Yugi used to defeat Nagumo in a rematch.

Imori brought the Dragon Cards, while they were sealed, to Kame Game to ask Solomon for information about them. He allowed Joey to open the seal, but Joey was stopped by Solomon, who explained that breaking the seal would cause yin and yang to clash, and create a warped power. This freaked Joey out. A few days later he realized something was wrong with Yugi, who had received a ransom note from Imori, but Yugi insisted that everything was okay.

Joey purchased a Yovega Fireboy yo-yo brought it to school school. The other students mocked him for trying to show off by giving walk the dog a new name. Determined to impress them, he tried his "loop the loop" trick, causing everyone to run for cover. Nezumi was unimpressed, and told him he never wanted to see a yo-yo again after he had been mugged by a yo-yo-wielding gang. Disgusted by the misuse of yo-yos, Joey agreed to help get revenge on the gang. Nezumi led Joey and Yugi to the location he said he got mugged, which they recognized as Hirutani's torture chamber". After entering they were surrounded by Hirutani's gang, who tried getting Joey to rejoin them, as Hirutani's number 2. Joey refused, but Nezumi who had set them up, helped the gangsters capture Yugi and hang him from a hook by his Millennium Puzzle rope. Joey pushed his way through the gang taking numerous blows from their yo-yos and helped Yugi down.

Hirutani gave Joey a last chance to join him, before ordering the gang to kill him and Yugi. While the gangsters swung their yo-yos at them, Joey borrowed Yugi's Millennium Puzzle and swung it around, catching the yo-yos on its rope. He then took all the yo-yos and attached them to the hook, causing the gangsters to be hung by their fingers.

Yugi switched to Yami Yugi to help fight off the rest of the gang. Yami Yugi led the remaining gangsters onto a rooftop, and Joey separated Hirutani from them. The two engaged in a fight, where Joey punched out two of Hirutani's teeth. Hirutani broke some glass and threw at Joey, causing some to go in his eyes. Hirutani punched Joey around while he was temporarily unable to see, and prepared to stab him with a shard of glass. However Joey heard Hirutani step on some broken glass, and determined his location. He swung a punch at Hirutani, knocking him off the roof and leaving him hang on by one hand. Joey then took out his yo-yo and used walk the dog to hit Hirutani's hand, causing him to fall. Joey met up with Yami Yugi who had disposed of the other gangsters. Joey then apologized to Yami Yugi for getting him dragged into his problems, but Yami Yugi insisted that Joey's problems were his problems too.

When Ryo Bakura transferred to Domino High School, he sat next to Joey and the two quickly got along. During the lunch break, Joey introduced Bakura to Yugi, Tea and Tristan and the four of them agreed to play the tabletop role-playing game Monster World the next day. A group of girls then came over and told Joey not to be hogging Bakura, and pulled Bakura away for a guide of the school. After school, Joey, Yugi, Tea and Tristan caught up with Bakura to ask where they'd play Monster World, but Bakura said that it was better that they don't play at all, since the last few people who played games with him all wound up in comas.

Bakura didn't come to school the next day, so Joey, Yugi, Tea and Tristan went to his apartment to cheer him up and prove that his old friends ending up in comas was just a coincidence, by playing Monster World. They met Yami Bakura at the door and mistook him for Ryo Bakura. Yami Bakura went over the rules of Monster World and created their character miniatures after giving them forms to fill out. Joey's character, "Joey" was a human warrior. He, Yugi, Tea and Tristan played the adventurers, while Yami Bakura played the Dark Master.

Not knowing anything about their enemy or the world the game was set in, the adventurers went to the village for information. Joey got enthusiastically involved in the game as he pushed the barman into telling them how Zorc had taken over the land, and infested it with his monsters. Tristan noted how the game brought out the worst in Joey, as he demanded the barman give them gold so they could help him. The barman directed them to another villager, who could tell them the safest path to Zorc Castle. Joey and Tristan roared out laughing at how the villager looked like Mr. Karita, the gym teacher, not knowing it was really him, trapped in a miniature. Karita gave them directions, and advised them to stay out of the forest.

Outside the village there was a 30% chance of an enemy monster encounter. Yami Bakura rolled a 02 on a pair of ten-sided dice. Since this was less then 30, an enemy Level 3 Goblin appeared. Joey rolled the dice to determine the strength of his attack. Yami Bakura calculated he would need 40 or lower to slay the goblin and Joey rolled a 13, by easily killing it.

The adventurers encountered a stranger lying unconscious in their path. Unknown to them it was Zorc in disguise. Joey got his character to poke the stranger with his sword, waking them up. The stranger told them that he had a holy sword, capable of defeating Zorc, but it was stolen from him after he was attacked in the forest and begged for their help. Joey thought it was worth going against Karita's safety advise for the sword and after some discussion the adventurers agreed to help the stranger.

Inside the forest there was a 80% encounter rate and the adventurers were quickly faced with five monsters. Joey rolled an 82, causing his character to fall on his face when he tried attacking. Tristan, Yugi and Tea defeated the monsters and tamed Pokii into joining their party.

The stranger revealed that he was Zorc and changed its form. Yami Bakura rolled a 00, causing Zorc to trap Tea in her miniature. Angry over this, Joey rolled to attack Zorc, not realizing it wasn't his turn. He rolled a fumble, 99, causing his soul to also be sealed in his miniature. Tristan and Yugi were sealed in their miniatures too shortly afterwards, leaving Yami Yugi to roll for all four of them.

Yami Yugi caused Tristan to blow off Zorc's hand. Zorc retreated afterwards, while his hand mutated into two more monsters. Using the double hit technique, Yami Yugi rolled a super critical 00 for Joey, allowing him to slash the eyeball monster in two. The double hit was banned for both players after Yami Yugi used it again to get Yugi to tame Pao.

At Zorc Castle, the adventurers inspected a strange pedestal inside a tower, causing them to get caught in a trap. The spiked ceiling dropped onto their heads and it was estimated that they would have three turns before the miniatures broke under its pressure. While trying to figure the required dice roll to complete the roof's supporting tower, Yugi and Joey were attacked by Zorc lowering their HP. Yami Yugi managed to make the right roll, and due to the adventurers' high speed scores, they escaped just before Zorc attacked again. Joey's figure was left with two holes in his head due to the spikes.

Having caught Zorc off guard, the adventurers won initiative and began attacking Zorc. Channeling their anger into the dice, Yami Yugi made powerful rolls as they attacked Zorc, but due to the difference in levels, Zorc wasn't injured too badly. Using brainwashed dice, Yami Bakura rolled a 00 for Zorc's attack. However Ryo Bakura had been able to take control of Yami Bakura's left hand, since his avatar's hand had been blown off, and used it to recalculate the damage so the adventurers each survived with 1 HP remaining. Yami Yugi rolled a 05 for Joey, allowing him to stab and gouge out Zorc's left eye. Yami Yugi got Tea to heal the party afterwards.

With his control of the left hand, Bakura rolled a 99 with the brainwashed dice, causing Zorc's next attack to backfire. Yami Bakura then impaled the left hand on one of the castle towers, causing the adventures to suspect Yami Bakura was not the same Bakura they knew. Yugi used his beast tamer training hand to pull the White Wizard Bakura, the avatar of Ryo Bakura, out of Zorc's wounded left arm. Bakura joined the adventurers and helped them fight Zorc.

After taking significant damage, Zorc transformed into Last Zorc and attacked the party, but they were shielded by Bakura's magic, leaving them with some HP. Pokii and Yugi were able to take advantage of Last Zorc's weak point being exposed to inflict serious damage and Joey cut Last Zorc in two afterwards.

Last Zorc was still alive and Yami Bakura threatened to have it self-destruct and kill the adventurers. He and Yami Yugi rolled for initiative, tying at 00 each. However with part of his soul sealed in the brainwashed dice, Bakura was able to shatter Yami Bakura's dice, allowing the adventurers to move and kill Zorc.

With Yami Bakura defeated Joey, his friends and everyone else sealed in miniatures returned to their bodies. Bakura made a diorama of the adventurers as a symbol of their friendship when they fought together.

Joey built-up his Duel Monsters Deck to contain nothing but the strongest Monster Cards he could get. However this caused him to lose several Duels, including one to Anzu. Frustrated, he asked Yugi to help him become better. Yugi pointed out the problem with using just Monster Cards and invited him and Tea to come to his house to watch the finals of the Duel Monsters tournament. After the finals, Yugi put on a videotape he received in the mail. The tape contained what appeared to be a pre-recording of Maximillion J. Pegasus, who challenged Yugi to a Duel. Yami Yugi got help from Joey, Tea and Solomon in testing his theory that Pegasus was using subliminal messaging. He witnessed Yami Yugi losing and Solomon getting sucked into the videotape by the power of Pegasus' Millennium Eye.

The next day at school, Joey explained to Bakura what happened to Solomon. he also tried cheering-up Yami Yugi by screaming in Yugi's ear. After school, he received a videotape, which he feared could also have been from Pegasus. Therefore he, Tea and Tristan went to Yugi's house to watch it, as Joey didn't have an 8 mm player of his own. Before playing the tape, Yugi showed Joey the invitation package for Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom tournament he'd received. However the tape contained a greeting from Serenity. Afterwards Joey told his friends how he and Serenity had lived apart since their parents split up, and that Serenity was close to losing her eyesight. Joey wept about how he couldn't help her, but Yami Yugi split his Star Chips for the Duelist Kingdom with Joey. He said that Joey could enter to win the prize money to pay for the surgery to save Serenity, while the Yugis entered to save Solomon. Yami Yugi and Joey spent the next week training for the tournament. During this time Yugi gave Joey the cards "Baby Dragon" and "Time Wizard". According to Joey they dueled 187 times over this period, with Yugi winning every time.

Yugi and Joey, while accompanied by Tea, Tristan and Bakura went to Domino Pier to get on the boat to the kingdom. Here Joey met Mai Valentine and unsuccessfully tried to impress her by saying he was friends with "the famous Yugi". He was unimpressed to find that he had to sleep in the common room on the ship, but took the chance to try and trade with the other participants. When Weevil threw Yugi's "Exodia" cards overboard, Joey dived into the water, but only managed to retrieve two of them.

When they arrived Duelist Kingdom the next day, Joey briefly had a cold. Once the tournament began, he and his friends followed Weevil into a forest, and supported Yami Yugi as he dueled Weevil to get revenge. Joey's advice to burn down the forest if necessary to defeat "Cocoon of Evolution" gave Yami Yugi the idea to use "Burning Land" to rid it of its Field Power Bonus. After Weevil was defeated, Joey took his Duel Glove.

Joey went out into the grass plains and promised to show Serenity scenery like it some day. He was advised by Yami Yugi to be careful when choosing the location of his Duel. Joey thought he would be safe in the plains, which should strengthen his Warrior and Beast-Warrior-Type monsters. Mai then came over to their group. Expecting her to challenge Yami Yugi, they were surprised to hear she wanted to Duel Joey. She explained that it was a better strategy to crush weak Duelists and earn Star Chips before dueling Yami Yugi. Tea tried talking Joey out of accepting, but Dark Yugi told him to do his best and Joey did not want to be remembered as a coward, so he accepted the Duel and they bet 1 Star Chip each. Joey asked Mai why she entered the tournament and thought her desire to have the prize money for excessive self interests was a weak reason. When asked himself, he said he was fighting to save a life.

Mai began using her Aroma Tactics to catch Joey off guard and strengthened her "Harpy Lady" with accessory Spell Cards. When Mai mocked Tea's talk of how hearing friends' feelings could make a Duelist stronger, Yami Yugi reminded Joey of the "something you can show, but can't see" riddle. Thinking the answer "friendship" was not going to save him this time, Joey thought he was not smart enough to figure out what Yami Yugi was trying to tell him. Thinking he would let Serenity down, he closed his eyes to imagine what blindness was like. Without concentrating on what he could see, Joey noticed the smell of various perfumes and realized Mai had marked her cards with perfume to see what they were without looking; one could "show the cards", but could not "see the smell". No longer put off by Mai's trick, Joey was able to concentrate. Although Mai said he still could not beta her in a hundred years. Joey used "Time Wizard" to weaken Mai's "Harpy Lady" monsters and age "Baby Dragon" into "Thousand Dragon", who destroyed the Harpies and defeated Mai. After the Duel, Joey told Mai that there was one thing that does not change after a thousand ears and its "something you can show, but can't see".

Joey and his friends soon realized they did not have any food for the rest of the day. Joey annoyed Tea, remarking that as a girl, she should have thought ahead and made lunch. He was not keen about eating mushrooms that Tristan's Survival Book deemed safe, but quickly smelled Mako Tsunami's unattended fish being cooked. Joey compared stealing the food to taking Star Chips and deemed it all part of the game of life. Mako spotted them and seemed angry at first, but eventually shared his fish with them. However he challenged Yami Yugi to a Duel afterwards and revealed the food has been bait to lure Duelists to the ocean terrain, which suited his Deck. Joey and the others supported Yami Yugi during the Duel.

Later on Joey spotted Kemo forcefully restraining a boy, who was to be eliminated for running out of Star Chips. The boy claimed the Star Chips were stolen and Joey offered to catch the thief to save him from being eliminated. He added last second that he'd take half the Star Chips as payment. Shortly after Joey and his friends began searching, they saw that the boy had been put on a boat leaving the kingdom and they were confronted by the thief, who turned out to be Mokuba. Mokuba unsuccessfully tried to steal Yami Yugi's Star Chips and told the group about Pegasus plan to take over KaibaCorp, where it was necessary for Pegasus to defeat Yugi in a Duel.

Joey then watched Yami Yugi Duel and defeat Mimic of Doom, during which time Kemo secretly took Mokuba back to Pegasus Castle without any of them noticing.

Then Joey had trouble finding opponents as they were afraid to be near Yami Yugi in fear of being challenged by him. Mai was annoyed that she lost to Joey. Thinking it would be shallow to challenge him to a rematch, she arranged for Rex Raptor to Duel him, and planned to defeat Rex afterwards effectively outranking both Duelists. Joey accepted the Duel and requested that Yami Yugi didn't help him. Each played wagered 2 Star Chips.

Joey planned on using the same combo he beat Mai with, but Rex destroyed "Baby Dragon" before Joey got to age it with "Time Wizard". Joey got overpowered by Rex's Dinosaurs at first and didn't know how to use "Time Wizard" without "Baby Dragon". He took advantage of Dinosaurs weakness to fire-based attacks with the "Flame Swordsman" to defeat a number of Rex's monsters before being overpowered by the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". Rex imposed an ante, where he bet "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" and Joey bet "Time Wizard". Joey took the gamble and played "Time Wizard", whose effect was a random chance "Self-Destruct" or "Time Magic". The "Time Magic" effect activated and fossilized Rex's monsters. Ironically Mai inadvertently cheered when Joey won.

As it got dark, Joey and his friends found a space in the woods to spend the night and grew hungry once again. Joey was about to eat a mushroom, despite Yugi, Tristan and Bakura'a attempt to restrain him. He stopped when Mai arrived with food. Having overheard Joey cry that he wanted food not Star Chips, she joked about trading him a small piece of food for a Star Chip. Mai suggested a ceasefire. She shared her food with the others and got the boys to do the cooking. While they ate, she made it clear that they could be friends tonight, but would be enemies the next day. Joey and the other boys slept outside, while Tea and Mai used the tent.

Later in Joey, Honda and Bakura were woken up during the night. Joey learned Mai had lost all her Star Chips to Panik and refused to take them back after Yami Yugi won them back. Joey proposed that he take the Star Chips instead, causing Mai to angrily demand them back, which he happily did. He said she could still throw them away, but suggested not letting her pride throw them and her dream of dueling Yugi away.

However Joey's next three attempts to fall asleep were disturbed by Tristan thinking a vine was a snake, Bakura finding the Millennium Ring reacting to the Millennium Eye and Kaiba landing his helicopter on the island. Still angry over what happen at Death-T, Joey tried picking a fight with Kaiba. So Kaiba offered to have a Duel using his new Duel Disk technology, which used an altered set of rules.

Joey Summoned an array of monsters all of which got destroyed by Kaiba's "Battle Ox" or its upgrade, "Rabid Horseman". Eventually Joey Summoned "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", which defeated the horseman, only for Kaiba to defeat it with "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and win the Duel. Kaiba continued to mock Joey after winning. But Tea tried telling Kaiba off, and Bakura was about to tell him about Joey fighting for Serenity, but Joey told him not to tell Kaiba. Before leaving Kaiba told them about a Duel Pegasus had with Bandit Keith, in which Pegasus demonstrated his Mind Scan ability.

That night, Joey was tormented in his dreams by his loss to Kaiba. The next morning, Joey got a bit worried by Yugi's deduction that today's opponents would be even stronger, but insisted he would take down whoever stood in his way. Joey left the group while he urinated. He was ambushed afterwards by Bandit Keith's lackeys who dragged him into the hidden Crypt part of the island, where he was to Duel Bonz. Joey fainted at first, but was woken up as one of the lackeys who punched him. Joey instinctively seized him and prepared to fight back, but stopped on seeing skulls everywhere. He got creeped out as Bonz told him he was in the crypt and surrounded by ghosts. Terrified, Joey accepted the Duel and the wager of his four Star Chips. Not wanting Kaiba to be right about him being afraid to ever Duel again, he outruled running.

Bonz reluctantly Summoned non-Zombie-Type monsters under Keith's orders, which Joey easily defeated. However Bonz then used "Call of the Haunted" to revive his three monsters as Zombies, which were powered up by the Graveyard terrain. Whenever he defeated these Zombies, they came back even stronger. His attempt to get rid of them with "Time Wizard" backfired as it self-destructed when the "Time Roulette" stopped on a skull. Bonz further powered up the Zombies with "Pumpking the King of Ghosts", but Joey defeated it with "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". Bonz's remaining Zombies were stronger than "Red-Eyes" and "Stop Defense" prevented him shielding his Life Points by putting monsters in Defense Mode. Joey Summoned "Kung Fu Fighter Ultimator" and used "Shield and Sword" to swap all monsters' ATK and DEF. Since the Zombies were only able to instinctively attack, they had 0 DEF, which became their ATK, allowing "Kung Fu Fighter Ultimator" to easily defeat one and drop Bonz's Life Points to 0.

Afterwards Yami Yugi, Tea, Tristan and Bakura found Jonouchi just after the Duel and congratulated him on his win. Joey thanked them but called back Keith as he was leaving and asked him to play fair next time if he's a true Duelist. Keith laughed and said that card games are about outwitting your opponent. He suggested that Joey stop pretending to be a nice guy and then prizes would come his way, like the various Decks filled with rare cards under his jacket. Joey and the others then watch Keith leave with his lackies. As Joey and the others were walking, Joey saw the exit of the cave. He then told everyone to follow him.

However before Joey and his friends got to leave the underground, Keith had his companions push a boulder in front of the exit, trapping them inside. Before the gap was fully closed, Joey yelled at Keith that he was going to beat him.

While Searching for a way out of the underground, Joey and his friends passed through a maze, which led them to the Labyrinth Duel Arena. Here they met the Meikyu Brothers, who told them they needed to pass through one of the doors behind them to exit. To find the right door, they needed to defeat them in a Duel so Joey and Yami Yugi joined-up for a Team Labyrinth Duel against the brothers. Joey bet 2 Star Chips and Yami Yugi bet 4.

The Meikyu Brothers used "Labyrinth Wall" to turn the field into a maze. Each turn, monsters could move through the maze by a number of squares equal to their Level. During the Duel Yami Yugi and Joey had to choose one of the two doors. One of which led to the exit, while the other led to doom. To give them a hint, the brothers said that one of them would only tell the truth and the other would only lie. Each claimed that the door they guarded was correct and offered to answer one question from each of Yami Yugi and Joey. Joey remembered a similar riddle, in which a man met a villager at a crossroad between Honest Town and Liar Town. The man wanted to go to Honest Town and was allowed to ask one question. The solution was for him to ask to the villager to take him to his town. In either case, he would be taken to Honest Town. Joey asked the Meikyu Brothers which door they were guarding and both of them pointed to Meikyu the Younger's door, implying Meikyu the Elder was the liar. However Yami Yugi was cautious since both had said "one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies", whereas as a pure liar and pure truthful man could not both say that.

Learning that "Wall Shadow" could attack monsters anywhere in the maze, Joey played "Axe Raider" at a distance from the entrance and comboed it with "Kunai with Chain" on Yami Yugi's turn to ensnare "Wall Shadow" when it tried attacking "Celtic Guardian". Yami Yugi and Joey tried keeping their monsters together, but the brothers used "Magical Labyrinth" to rearrange the walls, splitting up the group. Joey inadvertently got "Axe Raider" to step on a "Jirai Gumo" trap, killing "Axe Raider" and leaving "Flame Swordsman" faced with "Jirai Gumo" and "Labyrinth Tank", but Yami Yugi used "Dark Magician" and "Mystic Box" to destroy those two monsters. The brothers tried using "Dungeon Worm" to dispose of Yami Yugi and Joey's monsters. However Joey equipped "Flame Swordsman" with "Salamandra", allowing it to send an attack into the wormhole and destroy "Dungeon Worm".

Eventually the brothers managed to bring out "Gate Guardian", whose components "Suijin", "Kazejin" and "Sanga of the Thunder" could attack monsters anywhere in the labyrinth and block attacks directed at each other. When Joey tried attacking "Kazejin" with "Flame Swordsman", "Suijin" blocked and created a flood, which destroyed "Flame Swordsman". Yami Yugi used the water it left to carry the lightning attack from "Summoned Skull" to "Suijin" and used "Spellbinding Circle" to stop "Kazejin" defending. Joey Summoned "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", which Yami Yugi fused with "Summoned Skull" into "Black Skull Dragon". The labyrinth could not be only be crossed by flight, nor could "Black Skull Dragon" fit into the narrow corridors, leaving it immobile. Joey used "Copycat" to mimic the brothers' "Ryoku", halving their Life Points to strengthen "Black Skull Dragon" and Yami Yugi used "Shift" to switch its location with "Dark Magician". "Black Skull Dragon" then attacked and destroyed "Gate Guardian", defeating the brothers and earning Joey and Yami Yugi enough Star Chips to enter Pegasus Castle.

With the correct door still left to choose, Joey's head started to hurt while trying to figure it out. He helped the others search the chamber for clues. Yami Yugi was confident that the brothers would say whichever door they choose was wrong, so he tricked them into thinking he had chosen one door long enough for them to say it was the wrong door, before revealing he had actually chosen the other. This allowed the group to leave the underground and emerge just outside Pegasus Castle.

As Kaiba blocked Joey, Yami Yugi and their friends from entering the castle. Joey threatened to beat-up Kaiba if he didn't move, but was restrained by Tristan and Bakura. Upon noticing that Joey had earned 10 Star Chips, Kaiba said that he promoted him from a loser to a horse bone (from a loser to a deadbeat in the English version). Yami Yugi wound-up accepting a Duel with Kaiba by using Duel Disks, with five Star Chips on the line, while Joey and the others watched. Joey accused Kaiba of fighting dirty when he threatened to kill himself if he lost, though became very shocked when Bakura suggested it was not a bluff, and was a tactic which led to Kaiba's victory. After Tea told Kaiba that he had been the weak one in the Duel, Joey told him not to forget it was Yugi who saved him. However Kaiba stormed out of their ideologies, while Joey expresses his utter disgust at Kaiba and angrily chucked the Duel Disk back to him.

With no time to lose, Yami Yugi and Joey set out to find more Duelists to earn Star Chips. However Kemo pointed out that a boat containing the remaining Duelists had left and claimed that there were already four qualified finalists; Keith, Joey and a third who had left to collect the fourth. Joey tried giving Yugi five of his Star Chips, but Yugi was unwilling to take them. They were then interrupted by Mai, who had collected sixteen Star Chips and offered to give Yugi six in return for him winning back hers earlier. Yugi refused to accept and explained that Yami Yugi would do the same. However Joey told Yugi not to feel inferior to Yami Yugi, and to think about he wanted himself.

Joey said that if a real Duelist only cares about their pride, he does not want to be like that. Duelists like that were show-offs, whereas he would crawl through the mud if it meant protecting someone precious to him, he claimed and professed that he is Katsuya Joey before he is a Duelist. Eventually, Yugi took Mai's Star Chips and Joey said that if Yami Yugi had a problem with it, Yugi was to bring him out, so he could kick his butt.

With 10 Star Chips each, Yugi, Joey and Mai entered the castle. However Kemo tried stopping Tea, Tristan and Bakura entering, but Joey got fed up with him and punched him in the head, by knocking him out.

Inside the castle, Joey saw Bandit Keith and began to threaten him for trapping them in the cave. However Keith quietened him as he pointed to a Duel between Kaiba and Pegasus about to start. Although Joey wanted both of them to lose, Pegasus losing would ruin the tournament, so he hoped to see Kaiba lose. He was surprised to hear Yugi shouting advice to Kaiba before the Duel. Joey and the others watched Pegasus defeat Kaiba and seal his soul in a "Soul Prison" card as a Penalty Game.

The finalists were told that they would need the cards "The Honor of the King's Right" and "Left" to advance any further. Having not been invited, Joey had neither of those cards, but Yami Yugi gave him the "Right Hand" card, which was required for the prize money.

The finalists and friends were then taken to the dining room for a dinner party. Here they were surprised to see a portrait of Shadi, after which Joey helped explain his and his friends last encounter with Shadi to Bakura. As they ate their soup, Joey was unenthusiastic about Tristan's desire for Yami Yugi to save the Kaiba's and stated that they got what they deserved, but Tristan compared Kaiba fighting for Mokuba to Joey fighting for Serenity. Joey was disgusted to find a Millennium Eye replica in his soup. Each finalist received an eye containing a letter which determined their opponents for the finals; In Joey's case, Keith.

That night Keith who had neither of the "Honor" cards snuck into Joey's room to steal his. Yugi who heard Joey talking in his sleep also came into the room and spotted Keith. Joey was woken up as he heard Keith attacking Yugi and managed to fight him off. Keith left without the others noticing he had taken the card and Joey assumed he had just stumbled into the wrong room.

Joey and Tea supported Yami Yugi during his Duel with Mai. During the Duel, Mai put the "something you can show, but can't see" riddle before Yami Yugi. Joey pointed out that he had asked Mai when they Dueled and asked if she even knew the answer herself. Mai replied that she came up with her own answer and Joey offered to answer on Yami Yugi's behalf, saying that the answer is "friendship". However Mai said he was incorrect and her answer wasn't such a cliché. She thought to herself that Joey was the one who taught her the answer, so he should know.

As Mai proceeded to overpower Yami Yugi, Joey started to thing that he had been lucky when he beat Mai before. Mai disagreed and asked Joey if he knew why he had gotten so for in the tournament. Joey credited it to his friends, saying there was no other way a bad player like himself could have gotten that far. Mai said he was right; he knew and accepted his weakness and worked to overcome it. As she elaborated, Yami Yugi realized how he had been fighting wrong and was able to defeat Mai.

Keith annoyed Joey by putting his feet on the table before their Duel and asked if Joey would lick the bottom of his boot in exchange for him forfeiting. Joey was unable to find his "The Honor of the King's Right" and was given five minutes to produce it before he would be disqualified. Joey ran around to look for the card and dropped to his knees in defeat after four minutes. Mai spotted him weeping and told him to save his tears for if he loses. She handed him her qualification card, which she no longer needed and said that Joey shouldn't give up on his wishes. Joey tried asking why she did this for him, but she reminded him he had no time. As he ran back to the Duel room, Mai thought to herself "You idiot.. it's because we're friends!".

Keith's Machine-Type monsters immunity to magical attacks was an obstacle for Joey. He thought he had an opening when Keith played "Zoa", but Keith transformed it into a Machine with "Metalmorph" when Joey attacked it. Joey still overcame Keith's "Metalzoa" and "Stop Defense" combo with "Chasm of Spikes". He took out Keith's remaining Machines with "Garoozis" and "Kunai with Chain". Keith then took out Joey's monsters with the "Russian Roulette" effect of "Barrel Dragon". Joey tried fighting a gamble with a gamble and used the "Time Roulette" effect of "Time Wizard". He succeeded in ageing both monsters, but Keith used "Time Machine" to revert "Barrel Dragon" to its earlier state, causing it to defeat "Thousand Dragon".

Joey eventually beat "Barrel Dragon" by using "Copycat" to duplicate "Metalmorph" transforming "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" into "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon". Keith powered-up his "Slot Machine" with "7 Completed" cards he had hidden in his sleeve and attempted to destroy "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon" with "Blast Sphere", but Joey used "Dragon Nails" to make it too strong to be affected. "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon" and "Slot Machine" each stood at 3400 ATK, but Keith used "Pillager" to take Joey "Shield and Sword", swapping the monsters' ATK and DEF, making "Slot Machine" stronger. However Joey used "Graverobber" on "Time Machine", reverting "Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon" to its unswapped ATK and DEF, causing it to defeat "Slot Machine" and Joey to win the duel.

Tea thought that Joey and Yami Yugi would have to Duel in the final. However Yami Yugi said it was unnecessary and they would only end up exposing more of their tactics to Pegasus. Joey was alright with skipping the Duel and letting Yami Yugi face Pegasus as Yami Yugi was the only person he knew capable of defeating Pegasus. Although he was still unsure if it was okay for him to weigh Yami Yugi down with his baggage, by leaving Yami Yugi Duel for him. On the contrary, Yami Yugi claimed that he would win because he was fighting for Joey, like how Joey won because he was fighting for Serenity. Joey handed "The Honor of the King's Right" to Yami Yugi so he could claim both prizes when he defeats Pegasus. Pegasus also deemed a Duel between the two of them pointless.

Joey, Tea, Tristan and Bakura watched and supported Yami Yugi in his Duel against Pegasus. They were surprised to hear that Yugi would have his soul sealed in a card if he lost and that he accepted the Duel knowing that. During the Duel Joey got annoyed by Pegasus' use of the Millennium Eye to read Yugi's mind, but was confident the Millennium Puzzle would overpower it. This was confirmed when the Yugis used the Mind Shuffle strategy. When Pegasus changed the nature of the Duel to a Shadow Game, Yugi quickly became over exhausted leaving Yami Yugi fight by himself. Tea explained to Joey that Yugi's soul hadn't died as Yugi had told her before that one Yugi cannot live without the other. Joey feared that this could mean Yami Yugi is on the verge of dying. When Pegasus tried reading Yami Yugi's mind again, an apparition of Bakura, Joey, Yugi, Tea and Tristan blocked his view. With this Yami Yugi was able to defeat Pegasus.

Joey tried describing how he felt during the Duel, but his friends spoke before he got the chance and said everything he was about to say. Yami Yugi then got Pegasus to tell them the story of how he received the Millennium Eye. Afterwards, Joey wondered why Yami Yugi didn't give Pegasus a Penalty Game. Tea suspected it was because he would only be proving what Pegasus said about the Millennium Items possessing an evil intelligence was true if he did so.

Mokuba woke up shortly after Pegasus returned his soul to his body. He, Joey and Joey's friends went outside the castle, to find Kaiba. While they waited, Joey suggested that Kaiba's soul might have been summoned to Heaven, causing Tea to snap at him. Joey got a bit teary-eyed when he saw the Kaiba's reunited and thought he just couldn't hate them.

Joey received the prize money from Yami Yugi and asked if it was really okay if he took it. Yami Yugi replied that it was as he thought Joey was the real champion of the kingdom. Joey still insisted that he owed Yami Yugi big time. Yami Yugi said that he can owe him until the day he beats him, prompting Tea to ask what Joey's record against the Yugis' was, to which he replied that he had 0 wins and 187 loses starting from the one week earlier.

With no boats leaving the island, Kaiba gave Joey and his friends a lift back to Japan in his helicopter as payment for saving him and Mokuba. Ironically Joey almost fall out of the helicopter when he gave the ladder to Mai, but he was saved by Tristan.

With the money from Duelist Kingdom, Joey was able to pay for Serenity's operation and the doctors predicted that her vision would be fully restored.

At school, Joey got jealous of the new student, Duke Devlin, as he impressing some girls with dice tricks. He boasted to Duke about his success in Duelist Kingdom. Duke acted impressed and offered to play a game with Joey. Duke placed a die under a cup and bet Joey that he could move the dice without touching the cup. The loser of the bet was to do whatever the winner told them to do for the next week. Duke claimed that the die had moved, causing Joey to lift the cup to check, allowing Duke to grab the die from under it. Feeling he'd been cheated, Joey challenged Duke to another game. Duke imposed a game of four aces. Disillusioned that he had a 1/2 chance of winning, rather than a 1/3, Joey accepted and lost twice, increasing the length of time he would have to do as Duke said. Duke ordered Joey to be his dog and fired dice at his face when he was disobedient. Angered, Yugi switched to Yami Yugi and challenged Duke to four aces, with the rules modified to give each player a 1/2 chance of winning. Yami Yugi won both games, granting Joey his freedom.

The next day, Joey met up with his friends at the grand opening of the Black Clown. He purchased some Dungeon Dice Monsters Booster Packs and unbeknownst to him, Yugi got forced into a game of Dungeon Dice Monsters with Duke. Joey, Tea and Solomon didn't find Yugi back at Kame Game and when Tristan reported that Yami Bakura went to the Black Clown, they suspected something was up. When they got back to the Black Crown, they found the security guards unconscious and saw Bakura and Duke outside a room that had just caught fire while Yugi and Mr. Clown were inside. Joey and Tristan kicked down the door and found Yugi trying to re-solve the Millennium Puzzle, while its chain was pinned to a table. Yugi refused to leave Yami Yugi behind. Unable to get Yugi to let go of the puzzle, Joey used the Devil's Board Game as a lever to remove the pin and then carried Yugi out.

Joey heard of the Battle City tournament from Yugi and was annoyed that Kaiba had not invited him. He worried about losing his "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" when Yugi told him about the ante rule, but also saw it as an opportunity to get more rare cards.

Serenity's operation had been a success, but she was reluctant to remove the bandage from here eyes. One of the reasons Joey decided to enter the tournament was to show his courage in order to give Serenity the courage to remove her bandages.

Joey, Yugi, Tea, Tristan and Duke all squeezed into Mai's car to go to Domino Stadium for the finals. While Mai and Serenity were in the front.

Kaiba was already at the stadium as a finalist. Joey, Yugi and Mai were accepted too and were surprised to see Bakura who was meant to be at the hospital arrive as another finalist. They were worried about him dueling in his condition, but Bakura insisted he was fine and grossed them out by offering to let Joey touch his wound. Joey asked how he had managed to get a Duel Disk, but Bakura said it was a secret. Marik, still claiming to be Namu, arrived as another finalist. Joey grew suspicious of him, remembering that he was possessed by Marik not too long after meeting Namu. However Bakura thanked Marik for saving him earlier and Tea insisted that he was their friend. Not knowing Marik had controlled them as they said that, Joey thought he must have been over thinking things. Odion arrived as another finalist pretending to be Marik. The Millennium Ring pointing to him. Which led Joey and the others to believe he was Marik. The group was notified that the finals were going to take place in the sky as the Battle Ship blimp arrived.

When they boarded the blimp, much to Joey's dismay. Tea, Tristan, Serenity and Duke all went into his room. He unsuccessfully tried to tell all of them except for Serenity to leave. He got mad at Tristan for respecting that Yugi needed time to prepare, but not him and saying that Yugi was the favorite to win rather than him. However he thanked Tristan for bringing Serenity to him.

Joey watched Yugi and Bakura's Duel. After learning that Bakura had been possessed by Yami Bakura again, Joey gave a brief explanation of what the Millennium Items are and how they sometimes possess evil minds to Marik, who was still in the guise of Namu. Joey saw "Slifer the Sky Dragon" for the first time during the Duel, and witnessed Marik's plan to have Yami Yugi lose by endangering Bakura's life. However Yami Bakura intervened and Yami Yugi won. This further fueled Joey's hatred of Marik, whom he still believed Odion to be him.

In the second quarter final, Joey was matched up against Odion, who claimed to be Marik. Joey declared that he would defeat his opponent on the eleventh turn, with Serenity being the only one to believe this prediction. As the Duel took place on top of the blimp, Joey's cards almost blew away, but he managed to catch them.

Odion began with "Royal Temple" and Seting a number Trap Cards. Joey held off from attacking for a few turns and used "Giant Trunade", hoping to clear the Traps and attack and defeat Odion with the monsters he'd gathered. However Odion countered with "Judgment of Anubis", destroying the monsters and damaging Joey's Life Points. Joey baited out one of Odion's Trap Cards and determined that his Deck had little reliance on Monster Cards. However Odion played his "Embodiment of Apophis" cards, which doubled up as monsters and attacked, leaving Joey with 50 Life Points. Joey contemplated surrendering and Odion asked why he entered the tournament. Joey replied that there is someone he had to beat and that surrendering now would be disrespectful to his earlier opponents, who all fought him till the end.

Joey Summoned "Jinzo" through a combo of "Foolish Burial" and "Graverobber", destroying all of Odion's Trap Cards. Odion used "Swords of Revealing Light" to hold off attacks for three turns and later Summoned "Mystical Beast Selket", which guarded "The Sun Dragon Ra", which he placed inside the temple's ark. "Selket" proceeded to eat Joey's monsters, increasing its ATK.

Serenity became afraid to look, but Joey insisted she be courageous to watch until the end. When Joey said he would fight on despite seeming to have no chance, Odion said he admired his fighting spirit. Joey left himself open for defeat when he passed a turn. Before Odion could use this chance, Joey accused him of not being Marik, as he wasn't feeling his hatred towards Marik against Rishid, who had fought fairly. Odion followed Marik's order to Summon "The Sun Dragon Ra" to convince everyone he was Marik. However, Odion's "Ra" being a counterfeit angered Ra, who then stroke down both players. Roland ruled that the first to stand up would be the winner and if neither stood up within the time limit, both would be disqualified.

While unconscious, Joey dreamt he was in a classroom with his friends. There, Yugi reminded him of a Duel Monsters tournament at Domino Toysaurus. After gesturing at Kaiba for insulting him, Joey dropped his cards and his friends helped him pick them up. As he left the room in the dream, he regained consciousness and awoke standing up, making him the winner. Joey rushed over to check on Rishid, who said he was proud to have fought Joey. When asked who he was, Odion said he was Marik's shadow and pleaded with Yami Yugi to stop Marik's other self. With Odion unable to fight, Dark Marik took control of Marik and revealed himself to everyone.

Joey theorized that the reason he could stand up in the last Duel while Odion couldn't, was because he had the dream where his friends supported him, while Odion was alone. Afterwards Mai asked Joey if she was in the dream. He replied that the dream took place in the classroom, whereas Mai was too old for school and joked that she could be the teacher next time. Tea pulled Joey aside after this and told him that he was "the worst". Feeling excluded, Mai reverted to her self-reliant persona. She told Joey that she wasn't a soft Duelist like him and didn't need anyone cheering for her in her quarter-final against Yami Marik. Regardless Joey and the others showed up to support her, insisting that she was their friend.

Yami Marik turned the Duel into a Shadow Game. Joey realized he couldn't talk Mai out of accepting and encouraged her to win. He witnessed the Sphere Mode of "The Sun Dragon Ra" as Mai attempted to Summon it without knowledge of the hieratic text. When Yami Marik took back control of "Ra" and declared an attack on Mai, whom he held in place by his other cards, Joey ran onto the field and tried to free her. He was about to be hit by the blast from by "Ra", but Yami Yugi stood between them and took the attack on his back.

Joey, as usual, lends Yugi a hand when Tea is kidnapped by Yako Tenma and KaibaCorp is taken over. Joey provides his usual comic foil for the first few chapters, though he does get the key out of Tilla Mook. His first major role comes when he picks up a "Booby Trap" card that turns out to be a literal booby trap. Joey (and Tristan, who went in after him) is dumped down into KaibaCorp's basement where he has to face the third Card Professor, Klamath Osler, who he defeats by using "Roulette Spider" to make Klamath's own "Antlion" attack him.

Joey later encounters a laboratory run by the fifth Professor, Pete Coppermine. Impressed that Jonouchi beat Osler, Coppermine bets Joey 10,000 Yen that Joey could not defeat him. Through clever use of Trap Cards, Joey allows his "Divine Knight Ishzark" to attack twice, depleting Coppermine's Life Points with one move.

Joey's next opponent before returning to the group is the seventh Professor, Mendo Cino. This duel is longer and more taxing to Joey than the others, and even with the help of "Jinzo" he is not able to win easily. His victory comes when he uses "Stop Defense" to force Cino's "Guard Mantis" into Attack Position, and then striking it while it is weak. Cino, who had belittled Joey throughout the duel over the fact that Joey's tactics were inferior to his own, was impressed by his win and gracious in defeat.

Joey's next Duel is against Reiko Kitamori, the tenth Professor. He has to intimidate her into dueling, but once he gets her angry, she proves to be his strongest opponent yet. He finally defeats her by using "Relentless Attacks" to allow his "Gilti-Gearfried the Magical Steel Knight" to attack twice. After this Duel, he is picked up by Mokuba and taken to the place where Yakou is by him.

Later, he has a rematch with Bandit Keith who has The Wicked Eraser and is able to beat him by using Keith's Time Machine which Joey stole after beating Keith the first time in Duelist Kingdom arc. This is Joey's final Duel in Yu-Gi-Oh! R.

In the advent of their high school graduation, Joey and his friends, Yugi, Tea, Tristan and Bakura discussed their plans for the future. Joey wished to become a professional Duelist, but needed to repair his Duel Disk first. The friends then noticed the new student, Aigami, but failed to struggled to remember who he was at first. After school, Joey noticed Yugi was thinking of Atem and said that it was impossible to forget him.

Jonouchi intervened when he spotted Aigami, being harassed by Scud and his gang. Knowing of Jonouchi's past in Hirutani's gang, Scud dropped the matter for the time being. Aigami thanked Joey and left, insisting he was okay.[164]

Jonouchi had a job at Otogi's cafe, where he had to wear a dog costume and hand balloons out to customers. During his shift, Seto Kaiba appeared on the TV, introducing his new Duel Disk. Jonouchi groaned that he would not be able to afford it, prompting Honda to suggest he get another part-time job. This provoked a fight between the two. Anzu tried to break them up, but Jonouchi ate her ice cream, while continuing to fight. Jonouchi's boss, Mr. Clown, then appeared and fired him on the spot.[164]

Jonouchi fell asleep, during a graduation rehearsal and had a dream, where Kaiba taunted him about not being able to afford the new Duel Disk. In the dream, Jonouchi fell off a KaibaCorp blimp, causing him to fall off his chair, in reality.[164]

Following the rehearsal, Jonouchi and his friends were approached by Aigami, who expressed an interest in getting to know them better. The group went to Burger World, where they told Aigami about past adventures. Jonouchi showed Aigami his Deck and two of them, Yugi and Bakura arranged to play Duel Monsters at Yugi's house later.[164]

As Jonouchi, Aigami and Bakura made their way to Yugi's house, Aigami showed them his Quantum Cube and aggressively questioned Bakura, on learning that he once possessed the Millennium Ring. Jonouchi tried to intervene, but was stopped by a group of children, who told him he was being an inconvenience. Jonouchi was then transported to another dimension. In this world, the streets dissolved around him and Aigami appeared in the sky, taunting him and saying he could not escape. In Jonouchi's native world, his absence was noted when Honda found his bike and Duel disk abandoned, prompting his friends to start searching for him. In the dissolving dimension, Jonouchi tried running away from the areas that were dissolving, but fell and his body began to fade away too. However Atem appeared to him, following a flash of light and Jonouchi then found himself back in his own world. Reunited with Yugi, Anzu and Honda, Jonouchi considered telling them about seeing Atem, but decided to focus on finding Bakura first.[164]

Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda witnessed Yugi defeat Aigami in a Duel at Kaiba Land and Bakura ensuing return. Shortly afterwards, they watched Yugi and Kaiba Dueling Aigami, who had since become corrupted by the Millennium Ring. Following the Duel, Yugi informed them that he had seen Atem and Jonouchi mentioned seeing him too. This stirred the interest of Kaiba, who had been attempting to communicate with Atem.[164]

During Yugi's graduation speech, Jonouchi and Honda both cried uncontrollably. Some time after graduation, Jonouchi and his friends went to airport to say goodbye to Anzu as she left to go to the United States.[164]

Duelist Kingdom arc
After Seto Kaiba wins against Solomon Muto, and then rips up his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card, Joey spurs a bitter hatred of Kaiba. After taking up Duel Monsters, it becomes clear that Joey isn't very good at the game initially, so Yugi suggests that Joey take lessons from Solomon. The training proves rigorous, yet Joey copes and becomes a stronger duelist. He makes the top eight in the regionals (nationals in the Japanese version).

Joey accompanies Yugi in the Duelist Kingdom tournament, to help Yugi rescue Solomon and so he can use the prize money, to pay for Serenity's eye operation. Yugi gives Joey one of his Star Chips allowing Joey to also enter the tournament. On the boat journey to the Duelist Kingdom, Yugi gives Joey a "Time Wizard" saying it can be useful in a tight situation.

Here Joey meets Mai Valentine for the first time. At this point she claims he is not worth her time. After Weevil tosses Yugi's "Exodia" cards overboard, Joey dives in to the water to rescue them, he manages to retrieve two of the cards, before Yugi dives in to rescue Joey. Both of them are saved by Téa and Tristan, who managed to sneak onto the boat.

Still an amateur, Joey manages to beat Mai Valentine with Yugi's help and support from Tea and Tristan. He later beats Rex Raptor in a Duel, where he is not allowed to accept help from Yugi. Here he wins Rex's "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" card by betting "Time Wizard".

When the group meet Bakura, they end-up trapped inside Duel Monsters cards, by Yami Bakura. Using his friends as cards, Yami Yugi duels Yami Bakura. Joey is trapped in the "Flame Swordsman" card, but appears on the field, when Yami Yugi Summons him. Joey offers to sacrifice himself for Yugi's "Horn of Heaven" so they can stop Yami Bakura's "Man-Eater Bug". Tea, who has taken the form of the "Magician of Faith", cries over Joey's sacrifice, activating her effect, returning "Monster Reborn" to Yami Yugi's hand. Yami then uses it to revive Joey. Yami Yugi defeats Yami Bakura, after using his Millennium Puzzle to switch Yami Bakura's place with the regular Bakura. Afterwards Joey believes the events of the Duel to have been a dream.

In attempt to get revenge, he has a Duel outside of the tournament, against Seto Kaiba, where he is brutally defeated. Joey loses confidence after this defeat and briefly leaves his friends before being forced into a Duel against Bonz. He manages to beat Bonz and later the Paradox Brothers in a tag duel with Yugi. Joey then qualified to the semi-finals.

Pegasus then mentioned that each duelist must hold one of two entry cards or face disqualification. In order to keep Joey in the competition, Yugi gave him one of his entry cards. Although Bandit Keith steals Joey's card, Joey proceeds to defeat Keith in the semi-finals, because Mai gave Joey one of her entry cards after she loses to Yugi. In the final round Joey uses everything he learned from Yugi, throughout the tournament. Despite their friendship, neither of them hold back and Yugi wins after a close duel. Joey remains on the sideline cheering for Yugi in the final. After Yugi defeats Pegasus, he gives Joey the prize money for Serenity's operation. Kaiba then gave them a ride home, since them help save Mokuba from Pegasus.

Legendary Heroes arc
Shortly after Duelist Kingdom, Mokuba Kaiba comes to Solomon's shop to inform Yugi and his friends that Seto had been kidnapped and trapped in a Virtual World. The gang went to KaibaCorp to help Seto. Yugi, Joey, and Mokuba get into the virtual pods, which transfer them to the virtual world. On the way, Joey is forced to Duel with Mai Valentine. When she finds out her opponent is Joey (they were both masked), she joins in the search for Kaiba.

On the way they encounter a maze. Joey hears a girl crying and attempts to rescue her. (Mai disgustedly observes that Joey is too easily attracted to maidens in distress.) Joey finds Princess Adena who strongly resembles Mokuba. (Joey initially thinks that the princess is Mokuba, and asks why he is wearing a dress.) Adena says she is about to be sacrificed to the Mythic Dragon.

The four become guests to a royal feast. Adena explains everything about the Five-Headed Dragon. When they are ready to go vanquish the dragon, Adena is suddenly captured. However it is actually Mokuba in disguise. The remaining three heroes give chase, destroying many obstacles in their way.

Finally, they reach the Kaiba brothers. But then, the Big 5 cheat by re-writing the program and summon the Mythic Dragon themselves. After many sacrifices leaving only Yugi and Kaiba standing, they finally vanquish the dragon, by fusing Kaiba's "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" and Yugi's "Black Luster Soldier" into the "Dragon Master Knight". After the Big Five's defeat, Adena reveals herself to be a "Mystical Elf" and resurrects the sacrificed Joey, Mai and Mokuba. The group leave the virtual world once their task is complete.

Tea is happy that Yugi,Joey and Mokuba are back. Mokuba then tell Kemo that Seto is looking for the. Which makes Kemo and the others leave quickly. Mokuba the thanks Yugi, and his friends for him save Seto. Mokuba then leaves to go find Seto. (In the English version, Yugi and the gang say goodbye to Mokuba) In the Japanese version, Yugi and his friends say that they are going out for Ramen Noodles.

Dungeon Dice Monsters arc
After Duke Devlin transfers to Domino High, Joey becomes jealous of his popularity and challenges him to a Duel, where if Joey wins, Duke must shut down the game shop he'd just opened, since Solomon had been complaining about the loss of business his own game shop was getting as a result. Duke sets the stakes so that if he wins Joey must do as he says. Despite Yugi's objection, Joey and Duke duel using whatever cards they acquire in a bunch of Booster Packs.

Duke wins, with Joey bitterly reflecting that the motivation to help his sister might have pushed him beyond what were otherwise his limits in Duelist Kingdom. Holding his end of the bargain Joey does as Duke tells him and wears a dog costume. He was later released of this embarrassment, after Yugi defeated Duke in Dungeon Dice Monsters, freeing Joey. Despite their conflicts, Duke becomes friends with Joey.

Battle City arc
When Seto Kaiba hosted the Battle City tournament, he allowed duelists to enter based on a rating he'd given them. At the enrollment, Yugi was allowed to enter based on the 5 star rating he was given, but Joey was given the minimum rating of 1 star. While Joey was ranting about Kaiba, the tournament official, notices "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" listed as Joey's rarest card, so he changes Joey's rating to 4 stars saying there had been a mistake. After Joey and his friends have left, the official phones a Rare Hunter, to inform him about the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" card.

While heading to the hospital for Serenity's operation, Joey encounters a group of Rare Hunters. One of them, Seeker, duels Joey and defeats him using "Exodia". The hunters beat-up Joey and take the Red-Eyes card. This makes him feel unworthy to be present at Serenity's operation.

But Serenity refuses to take the operation until Joey arrives. Tristan manages to find Joey and talk him into coming to the hospital. Serenity is still angry at Joey for being late, but Joey manages to talk her into taking the operation. But while this on top of his loss to Duke Devlin, a capable but unranked duelist, would effectively seem to be Joey's fall from grace, a comeback was in the near future for him.

Joey finds Seeker on the first day of the tournament in an attempt to get a rematch, but is denied, so Yugi duels and defeats Seeker instead. He wins back the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" card and offers it to Joey, but Joey insists that Yugi keep it. Despite losing the card, Joey goes on to defeat Espa Roba, who had just defeated the card's original owner Rex Raptor.

He then defeats Yugi's old rivals Weevil Underwood and Mako Tsunami, qualifying for the quarter-finals and gaining new cards that boost his Deck considerably. He decided that early on, he only wanted to defeat strong duelists to qualify, rather than do things the easy way. This led him to go as far as challenging Seto Kaiba. Kaiba declined after he is informed of Yugi's location while hunting for the Egyptian God Cards. Although he is relieved about not facing Kaiba, he still acts tough and calls Kaiba a coward.

After his Duel with Mako, Marik Ishtar, the leader of the Rare Hunters, uses his Millennium Rod to possess Joey and force him to duel Yugi, with both their lives on the line. They were both chained to an anchor which would drop after a time limit or when a players Life Points hit zero.

Also once a player's Life Points hit 0, the opponent would be able to get a key, that could unlock him from the chains. Marik boosts Joey's Deck with powerful spell cards that have Yugi and Kaiba amazed. Yugi, to show Marik how strong his friendship with Joey is, summons Red-Eyes and gives Joey his Millennium Puzzle. Yugi loses, but Joey breaks out of Marik's control and manages to force the Duel in a draw. He grabs the key to unlock Yugi's chain and dives into the water to rescue him. He is unable to unlock his own chains with Yugi's key. Serenity arrives in time to take the bandages off her eyes and take Joey's key and dive in to rescue him.

Joey along with his friends proceed on to the Kaiba's blimp, where the quarter-finals are held. He is paired against Odion Ishtar in the quarter-finals. At the time Odion was pretending to be Marik, while the real Marik pretended to be a boy called Namu, who earned their trust by pretending to have helped Bakura. After Odion obtains a clear advantage in their duel Serenity begins to leave, saying she cannot bear to watch, but Joey calls her back, saying that she is his inspiration and he needs her to win. Despite a comeback, Odion attempts to claim victory, but Joey accused him of not being Marik.

He claimed Odion was fighting fairly and proving honorable and didn't think he was the same guy who was controlling him earlier. Odion withdraws his winning move and tries to summon "The Winged Dragon of Ra" to prove he was Marik. Since the Ra card was a counterfeit that Marik had put in Odion's Deck, the real Ra was angered and struck down both players. When this occurred, Odion's fake Millennium Rod shattered giving Marik away. Seto Kaiba announced that the first player to stand up within a time limit would be declared the winner, otherwise both players would be disqualified. While unconscious, Joey has a dream about his friends helping him to stand up and he ends up standing up for real, claiming victory. Odion then asks for Joey's forgiveness, and tells him that it had been an honor dueling him, before falling into a coma.

Joey later thanks his friends, telling him they were there with him in the dream helping him stand up. Mai asked Joey if she was in his dream. Joey lies and says that she wasn't, which infuriates Mai. She stormed off claiming she didn't need friends, while Téa pulled Joey aside to tell him off.

Mai was paired against Marik in her quarter-final. Joey attempted to encourage her from the sideline, but she was still disgusted by what he had said earlier and claimed she didn't want or need his help. Marik set the Duel such that each time a player destroyed one of their opponent's monsters, the opponent would forget everything about someone they knew.

This forced her to forget about Téa first, then Joey. Marik was about to win the duel by attacking with "The Winged Dragon of Ra", while Mai was strapped to a wall by Marik's monsters, so Joey climbed into the arena and tried to unstrap Mai to save her from Ra's blast. He was unable to but Yami Yugi jumped in protecting both from the blast. Yugi and Joey survived, though Marik was able to send Mai to the Shadow Realm. He feels somewhat responsible for Mai’s loss. This further fueled Joey's hatred for Marik, making him want to face Marik in the next round.

The Virtual World arc
After the quarter-finals, the blimp was sucked into a hidden area where Yugi, Joey, Téa, Tristan, Duke, Serenity, Seto and Mokuba were linked into a Virtual World apparently hosted by Kaiba's stepbrother Noah Kaiba. The party was split up and to defeat members of the Big Five, who would take their bodies to escape from the virtual world and live inside that body in the real world. Joey was able to construct his Deck using lists of given cards. He also included a few "Harpie" cards, remembering how Mai used to use them.

He faced Johnson, who rigged Joey's lucked based cards to work in his favor. Noah threatens to disqualify Johnson, but Joey asks that the Duel continue, and he defeats Johnson. He later pairs up with Yugi as they duel the Big Five combined. Working together they defeat the Big Five. Joey and the others see Kaiba duel Noah, and see that Kaiba and Mokuba are turn to stone. Joey gives Yami Yugi support in his duel against Noah, but is turned to stone as well. After Yugi defeats Noah, Joey and the others find their way out of the vitural world. After the escape the virtual world, the party returns to the battle City finals.

Battle City Finals arc
For the quarterfinal round, the duels were to be staged atop Kaiba's airship, the Battle Ship with the draw determined at random.

On entering the Duel Tower Island, where the Battle City finals are taking place, Kaiba continues to mock Joey and asked how he managed to enter the tournament, saying somebody must have messed up on the computer systems. Despite his hatred for Kaiba, Joey hated Marik more and used the Battle Royale Duel, which would determine who faced who in the next round in his favor to pair him against Marik.

When Joey Duels Marik in the semi-finals, Marik links all monsters summoned by a player to the player themselves, so that any pain the monster feels, the controller would also feel. Joey Duels surprisingly well against Marik, but when Marik summons "The Winged Dragon of Ra", he uses its effect to destroy Joey's monsters causing Joey immense pain. It appeared that Joey would not survive the blast. This even resulted in Yami begging Kaiba to call off the duel, but Kaiba refuses, and insisted he had to witness Ra's special ability with his own eyes. But when Ra had finished, Joey was still standing.

He struggled to draw his next card, "Gearfried the Iron Knight". He summoned it and tried to attack Marik's Life Points directly for the win, but collapsed before the attack went through, leaving Marik the winner. After seeing Joey stand up after Ra's blast, Kaiba actually admits to himself that he was impressed by Joey's performance, and realizes Joey isn't the third-rate amateur that he thought he was.

Joey remains in a coma for a while (In the English version, a few screen shots were cut that showed that in fact he was dead for a few minutes, and also dialogues were rearranged to show him simply as unconscious), leaving his friends worrying that he may have been sent to the Shadow Realm. He is taken care of by KaibaCorp doctors on the Kaiba's blimp, until Yugi's Duel with Kaiba in the semi-finals, when Tristan drags him to the window to see Yugi's duel claiming Yugi needs him.

Joey slowly regained consciousness and afterwords dashes up the Duel Tower, catching the end of Yugi's duel. After Kaiba gives Yugi "Obelisk the Tormentor", because of the ante rule, Joey challenges Kaiba to a play off to determine 3rd and 4th place. Though Joey plays rather well, managing for a short time to use Kaiba's own "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" against him, Kaiba wins and says that dueling Joey was just a waste of time. However, Mokuba, who was one of the few spectators, is impressed by how Joey dueled his brother.

Joey cheers on Yugi in the finals against Yami Marik and returns to Mai's bed to see if defeating Yami Marik had woken her up. He cries over her body, until he hears Mai and Serenity snickering, as they pranked him into admitting he would do anything to have Mai wake up, Mai having woken up before he even reached her room.

After the gang flew back to Domino City, they said their goodbyes and parted. Later on, Joey met up with Yami Yugi for a Duel they promised each other. Joey claimed he was going to win back his "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". The Duel's result was not shown, but Joey did use "Red-Eyes" in later arcs.

Waking the Dragons arc
Joey accompanies Yugi in saving the world from Dartz and his organization, Paradius. When Arthur Hawkins tells of an alternate world where real Duel Monsters exist, Joey, remembering all the experiences he and his friends have had previously, tells Arthur that he believes him.

He later finds out Mai is working for Paradius and is set on using "The Seal of Orichalcos" to strip Joey of his soul. Joey refuses to accept that Mai joined under her own free will and accused Paradius of brainwashing her. Mai duels Joey in an attempt to take his soul. Joey, holding back at first for fear of losing Mai, struggles to avoid losing the duel, until his mind is taken to another world, where he pulls a sword from a large dragon sealed in crystal. Back in reality that dragon, "The Claw of Hermos" is added to his Deck. He uses this card to gain an advantage in the Duel. When it becomes apparent that Joey is about to win, Valon interrupts, using a fragment of the Orichalcos stone to remove "The Seal of Orichalcos" in order to save Mai.

Joey manages to catch the last glimpse of Yami's Duel with Rafael. He is astonished to see the symbol of the Orichalcos on Yami's forehead, since this must have meant Yami played the Seal on his own. This is nothing to his shock when he witnesses Yami lose the duel and watches a soul be taken. Rafael began to make his escape in a helicopter, taking Yugi's body with him. When Joey pursues and demands that Rafael give him back, Rafael flings the body down. After Yugi begins to show signs of life, Joey becomes excited thinking Yugi had found a way to avoid losing his soul. But Yami Yugi revealed that only he had survived while "regular" Yugi let his own soul be taken. Joey punches Yami for moping around, losing hope, and tells him to focus on saving Yugi.

Joey and Tristan get separated from Téa and Yami Yugi when the train they were riding split in two. Outside the train, Joey and Tristan meet Rex, who is now working with Paradius and looking to duel Joey. Joey refuses to duel, knowing one of them would lose their soul if the Seal of Orichalcos was played. But Raptor begins to duel anyway, playing the Seal on the first turn and leaving Joey no choice but to duel back.

Throughout the duel, Rex reveals his motive for targeting Joey. He and Weevil had been humiliated after their defeats to Joey and Yugi in Duelist Kingdom. They both suffered a mass loss in popularity and were now regarded as losers and a joke. He blamed Joey for all this, including going on to say Joey stole, not fairly won, his Red-Eyes. Joey proceeds to win the duel, causing Rex to lose his soul. He and Tristan are left carrying Rex's body through the desert after this.

Joey's Hermos card begins to glow, and he sees the three Legendary Dragons appear and guide an airplane to land safely nearby. Joey and Tristan rush to the plane, where they meet up with Yami and Tea, who had also seen the Dragons guide the plane. Kaiba emerges from the plane, and he explains how Paradius had hacked into KaibaCorp and began taking over. Kaiba gives them all a lift to Domino City, leaving Rex in the care of his remaining faithful staff. The City has become overrun with Orichalcos Soldiers. After being chased by one, Joey meets Valon, who takes off on a motorcycle. Joey grabs a motorcycle that an Orichalcos Soldier had caused someone to fall off of and chases Valon.

After catching up, they duel, and Valon explains his reason for targeting Joey; from hearing Mai constantly rant about him, he felt eliminating Joey would be a favor to her. However, Valon becomes impressed by Joey's dueling skills and speech about how he felt dueling was about fighting for people you love. He soon comes to respect Joey and see why Mai is so interested in him. Mai appears midway through the duel, telling Valon off for dueling Joey because she wanted to be the one to defeat him. Joey wins, and just before Valon lost his soul, he asked Joey to save Mai.

Unable to convince Mai that she has been brainwashed, Joey says the only way he could get through to Mai was to duel her. But though he tries his best, he is again handicapped by the strain his battle with Valon put on his stamina. Through the course of the duel, Mai comes to remember why she had once cared for Joey. She holds back from attacking him when she is able to declare victory, but Joey still falls and the Seal of Orichalcos begins to take his soul. Mai rushes and hugs him to stop him from falling, telling him she was sorry and that he was "the closest friend she ever had".

Shortly after, Joey pushes her safely out of the Seal while his soul gets taken. An image of him standing, fists at his sides, appears on a tablet in Dartz's temple to show his soul's capture. (It is noteworthy that he is one of only two characters whose soul-carving does not look like he's panicking at his imprisonment. The other is Valon.) Mai weeps over Joey, denouncing everything she did. Once she calms down, she takes the Hermos card and rests his body next to Valon's before dashing to duel Dartz for Valon and Joey. Yami, Téa and Tristan arrive and take care of Joey's body.

Joey's soul returns to his body after Yami's duel with Dartz. Yugi returns Hermos to Joey, and he helps summon monsters to defeat The Great Leviathan. After the defeat of the Leviathan, he watches as the Legendary Knights and Dark Magician Girl return to their world. The Hermos card fades away as he does so.

Grand Championship arc
Joey was invited to Seto Kaiba's Grand Championship tournament. He served as mainly a comic relief character in this arc. After Yugi said the card "Heart of the Underdog" reminded him of a friend, calling Joey an underdog became a running gag that day. In the first round, he defeated Solomon Muto, who entered under the identity Apdnarg Otum, to test how well he had trained Joey. Only Joey was fooled by his disguise. After putting up a good fight he was defeated by Zigfried von Schroeder in the next round. When Yugi's grandpa was missing, Joey joined Yugi and the gang on a search to find Yugi's grandpa. Joey also watches Kaiba duel Zigfried, and watches Yami Yugi duel Leon.

Capsule Monsters arc
Yugi wakes up after having a strange recurring nightmares about the Pharaoh being captured by an evil monster with glowing red eyes and telling him that why he is having these dreams will become clear when he "plays the game". This time, the Millennium Puzzle starts glowing in response to the dream, bewildering Yugi even further.

Before leaving for school that day, Yugi noticed that his grandfather, Solomon Muto, had not returned from his "secret expedition" (Yugi was told at the last minute) as his flight was due last night. Yugi is worried about the fact that Solomon is missing.

Meanwhile, there is a new game on the block; the Capsule Monsters board game is the new fad in the Duel Monsters craze, and Yugi has already taken the opportunity to learn the rules of the game. When Joey breaks the news about the trip, Yugi and his friends could not contain their excitement. Yugi, Tristan, and Tea agree to take Joey's other three tickets.

Just when the private plane for the trip approached its final destination, the engines cut out and the aircraft crash lands in a mysterious forest. After Yugi and his friends evacuate the aircraft, they find a man who says his name is Dr. Alex Brisbane.

When Yugi lets slip to Brisbane that he is Solomon Muto's grandson, Brisbane tells him that he's a colleague of Grandpa, and on their latest expedition together he disappeared. Now Yugi knows just where Grandpa had gone, but the Pharaoh still suspects something. They just happen to win a trip; their plane just happens to crash; and they just happen to meet the man who was the last person to see Grandpa. It all seems a little bit coincidental. Brisbane shows Yugi and the gang where he last saw Solomon. Yugi and his friends are surprised when they discover that Brisbane last saw Solomon in a pyramid.

Brisbane explains that he believes it to be the legendary pyramid of Alexander the Great, and that it's supposed to contain some sort of ancient game. They check it out, narrowly avoiding a number of dangerous traps, and come across a room that, as Tristan put it, is the size of Cleveland. The floor looks like a giant map of different land types, which looks incredibly familiar to Yugi. Joey decides to check it out but, to everyone's surprise, disappears into thin air the second he steps on the map. Coming to the conclusion that Solomon must have gone to the same place as Joey, the rest of the gang decide to follow, leaving a bewildered Brisbane behind.

They find themselves in a forest, with Joey nowhere to be seen. Yugi notices a lot of egg-shaped rocks around, but before they can investigate, some giant cockroaches (Gokibore, a monster from the Volume 6 expansion set) and a giant praying mantis (Kamakiriman, from Volume 3) ambush them. The escapes of Yugi, Tristan, and Tea causes them to have to split up.

Yugi is cornered by the mantis, so the Pharaoh takes over to protect him. He accidentally touches one of the strange egg-shaped rocks whilst jumping, which somehow causes Celtic Guardian to appear. Celtic Guardian attacks the mantis, destroying it.

Meanwhile, Tristan and Tea escape the cockroaches by ducking into a cave. They find themselves on a beach, accompanied by two monsters: Thunder Kid and Happy Lover.

At the same time, Joey is up high on a mountain, looking over onto the forest that the gang are in, hearing Yugi's shouting. Suddenly, a giant bird (LOB-039 Kurama) comes up behind him and grabs him by the shoulders, flying away with Joey in his claws.

Back in the forest, Celtic Guardian disappears in a beam of light, transforming into a small capsule. Now, Yugi knows where he'd seen this before. Somehow they have entered a real life version of Capsule Monsters. However, he is soon again attacked by a monster, this time it's a Trent. The Pharaoh realizes the strange device on their wrists are for launching the capsules that house their monsters in order to summon them. Calling upon Celtic Guardian, the Pharaoh attacks the tree, but it gets the upper hand and injures Celtic Guardian. The Pharaoh feels Celtic Guardian's pain and realizes that the Capsule Monster world is a deadly Shadow Game. To make matters worse, the Trent turns surrounding trees into copies of it to assist its attack. However, the Pharaoh releases a new capsule monster to assist them, the fire-attribute Hinotama Soul. It easily burns the Trents to ash. The Pharaoh switches with Yugi, and Yugi runs off to find his friends.

Elsewhere, Joey has been dropped by the Kurama into a nest of its young. Joey repeatedly jumps off cliffs housing Kurama nests to escape until he lands on a branch and accidentally releases Baby Dragon from another rock. Joey boards Baby Dragon and flees the mountains. However, a flock of Kurama chase after them. Realizing there are too many to take on head first, Joey decides to trick them into getting stuck in a small opening in a canyon.

On the beach, Tristan figures out that Happy Lover and Thunder Kid are monsters they accidentally released from the egg-shaped rocks back in the forest when they ran from the giant roaches. Suddenly a giant sea monster called Root Water emerges from the ocean. Happy Lover and Thunder Kid stand before it to keep Tristan and Téa safe.

Elsewhere, Joey has taken refuge behind a waterfall and checks his guide book, still believing himself to be in India. Joey then notices a treasure chest behind him and Baby Dragon and opens it. However, instead of treasure a scroll wraps around him, and Baby Dragon burns it off him (with Joey having to put out the fire on him in the waterfall). The ashes of the scroll turn into a map, and Joey wonders if it's a treasure map.

Back on the beach, Tristan is having Thunder Kid attack Root Water with limited success as Thunder Kid is taking a pounding from the giant monster. (They too realize they feel the pain inflicted on their monsters.) Tea remembers Yugi's advice on how to play the board game version of Capsule Monsters and has Happy Lover heal Thunder Kid with its Heart Beam. Tristan then decides to blind-side Root Water with a sneak attack and Thunder Kid is successful in frying the fish. However, instead of vanishing, Root Water's charred body shatters and the beast evolves into High Tide Gyojin. It then creates a typhoon, sucking up Téa and Tristan along with their monsters. However, Solomon arrives and uses his Summoned Skull to blast High Tide Gyojin apart, saving Tea and Tristan.

Having seen Summoned Skull's "Lightning Strike" attack, Yugi heads to the beach to find Tea and Tristan unconscious with their monsters. However, his mind is put to ease when Solomon walks up to him and tells him that they're resting after the ordeal they went through. Yugi happily clings onto his grandpa and cries in joy of seeing him again.

Later, Yugi and the others make camp and begin to wonder where Joey is in the Capsule Monsters world. At the same time, Joey has gotten hungry and follows the smell of the campfire to his friends (after nearly fallen to his death before Baby Dragon managed to catch him). The Pharaoh switches with Yugi and explains that their dilemma of being in this world won't be an easy problem to solve.

However, Tea points out that the flowers around them have gotten closer since they set up camp. Solomon tosses a stick from the fire into the flowers to reveal that they are actually a pack of Flower Wolf. Everyone but Solomon (whose Summoned Skull is too high level to be used frequently) releases their Capsule Monsters to fend off the pack. However, the Pharaoh knows they don't stand a chance and has Thunder Kid blind the wolves temporarily by reflecting its lightning off Celtic Guardian's sword.

The next day, Tristan and Joey do an annoying "victory dance" while the Pharaoh and Yugi wonder about the safety of their friends. Joey and Tristan then collapse and beg for food. Tristan then remembers about snacks he packed for the trip, but then remembers everyone (except Solomon) left their packs back at the campsite. After Solomon tries to encourage them to go a few days without food, they take off to find some, but run into tree branches. Tea reveals Solomon had a bag of food and taunts them as she eats a chip. Solomon tells them all they had to do was ask nicely. While Joey and Tristan complain, Yugi notices that the mountains are moving and runs to the edge of the forest to see they're on an Island Turtle. Joey and Tristan try to be tough until Yugi tells them it won't attack them unless they keep it up. Joey and Tristan apologize but immediately do another victory dance. Tea complains about the lack of female friends she has, while the Turtle roars in annoyance to Joey and Tristan's song. It dives, forcing everyone to "abandon ship!"

They then reach a temple in the middle of the lake and enter to have the doors shut behind them. Joey notices a "giant tea pot" in the middle of the room and (having switched with Yugi) the Pharaoh tells him it is not a tea pot. La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp emerges from the lamp. The Pharaoh summons Celtic Guardian and begins fighting the genie. Suddenly, the doors swing back open and a flood of water rushes in. It then freezes, trapping Téa and Solomon in ice. The perpetrator behind this is Neo Aqua Madoor, "Jack Frost's evil cousin". Tristan and Joey summon their monsters to help out the Pharaoh despite his constant protests, telling them to not interfere out of concern for their safety. Joey then tells him that they don't want to see him get hurt either as the Pharaoh realizes they can use the two enemies' attacks against each other. After faking head on attacks, Celtic Guardian and the others' capsule monsters back off as Neo Aqua Madoor and La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp's attacks collide into each other and destroys them.

Tea and Solomon are released form the ice, and a tablet with Egyptian writing on it appears. Solomon translate it: "Before the shadows blanket the land, Go to the fortress of fear. Locate the place where the spirit sleeps, And the pathway you seek will appear." Joey takes out his map from earlier and realizes that it shows the exact space they're on right now and that the fortress is on the same square, but VERY far away. Everyone resolves to go there, hoping the pathway it mentioned means the way home. Tristan finds a secret passage under the main floor (as they did not want to take chances with swimming across) and they quickly run through it.

Coming out above ground, they find themselves in an ancient graveyard that is soon flocked with Wood Remains and The Wandering Doomed. Yugi, Tea and Joey each release a new monster; Kuriboh, Dark Witch and the Flame Swordsman respectively. With their new monsters the Zombies are easily defeated.

Racing to the top of the hill the fortress lays upon, Tristan jinxes their good luck as four walls rise up from the ground and surround the fortress with statues of the Aqua Spirit, Spirit of Flames, The Rock Spirit and Garuda the Wind Spirit at each corner. Joey unsuccessfully tries to fly over as he is repelled by a force field. Yugi figures out that if four people mimic the stances of the four statues, the door will open. They do so, forcing Yugi to enter the fortress himself. Yugi falls into a pit, but is saved from a rough landing by the Pharaoh taking his place. The walls of the room they are trapped in begin to close in on them while outside, Joey breaks his pose and the statues come to life and begin attacking everyone. The Pharaoh finds a new capsule and releases the monster, which carries him up in a beam of light. Coming to his senses, the Pharaoh sees his new monster is Dark Magician and that his friends are in trouble. Using Dark Magician's "Magical Crossroads" the statues are destroyed at the cost of Solomon's Summoned Skull being taken down by the Rock Spirit.

Inside the fortress, Yugi opens the coffin located in the fortress (the place where the spirit sleeps) just as the sun sets and everyone else comes in. The coffin turns into a doorway and a piece of golden armor hovers above it. Another riddle appears as the armor dons itself on Yugi. Solomon says it says five trials await them to test the strength of Yugi's heart. Despite some discussion about not going through with the trials, everyone decides to go along with it in hopes of it leading them home again.

They arrive in a desert and find a village, where they are given a pendant and the instructions for the first trial; "Silence the whisper that rides the desert wind". While Solomon stays a safe distance form everyone else, they call forth their monsters and destroy a Medusa Worm, which they initially believed to be the enemy. However, it turns out to be one of many Medusa Worms under the voice's control. Everyone, but the Pharaoh is spat on by a worm and are turning to stone. Dark Magician takes the Pharaoh above the storm and the voice sent to confuse them to show him a tornado causing it.

The Pharaoh calls Dark Magician back to his capsule and proceeds on foot to reach the voice. However, he isn't strong enough to reach the tornado. He then sees a man wearing a cape and mask, telling him to merge with the Dark Magician to gain the strength needed to pass the trial. Doing so, the Pharaoh becomes the Dark Warrior and flies into the tornado to find the voice is Mystical Sand. Silencing her, the Pharaoh clears the trial and reverses the Medusa Worms' petrification on his friends. The armor takes a toll on the Pharaoh as he is not used to it yet. Yugi takes his place to relieve some of the pain and tells of the man he saw explaining how to use the armor. One of the five shapes on the pendant lights up to signify the victory over this trial, and a doorway comes out of the sand.

Entering it, everyone finds themselves on a floating island above the clouds. Yugi collapses from the strain of the Duel Armor and is taken to a cave to rest. Another message arrives, and Solomon reveals that next is "The Trial of Light and Shadow". They are tasked with breaking an unbreakable stone in the "valley of light" as it appears only once a day. Deciding to take care of the trial in Yugi's place, Tristan, Joey, and Solomon head for the nearest valley as it becomes noon and the stone is revealed. However a Prisman appears and begins to attack them. Tristan takes advantage of its short temper and uses it to blast the stone apart.

In the meantime, Yugi has recovered, and Tea shows the Pharaoh the trial's instructions. Noticing they only know half of the trial, the Pharaoh realizes that by exposing the parchment to darkness, the second half is revealed. He realizes they are now in danger and takes off with Tea to find them.

Elsewhere, everyone has picked up a large piece of the stone and smash Prisman to pieces. However, a Skull Guardian appears as a sign of the second phase of the trial beginning. Joey hoped he was there to congratulate them, but it began attacking instead. The Pharaoh once again merges with Dark Magician to become the Dark Warrior and easily defeats the monster. However, he spares it as a glow where the stone was appears. The Pharaoh then explains that the second part of the trial was to not only defeat

the Skull Guardian, but to show mercy. This rewards them with the means to leave the island. At the same time the masked man from before appears to all of them and congratulates the Pharaoh on completed Level 2 of the trials. The Pharaoh wonders what will happen if he completes the trials, and the stranger explains that he will receive the power to rule the world as he will have proven himself a true king. However, even though the Pharaoh might not want it, there are others seeking it, and it must be claimed before someone evil does. Also, if they fail, they will be trapped here until the next challenger arrives.

Using the wings found in the trial's reward chest, everyone flies off into another glowing doorway.

Back outside the game, Dr. Brisbane is laughing evilly that soon the power to rule the world will belong to him.

In the game, everyone has reached a volcanic area, where they must remove the Blade of Chaos before it's too late. Tristan gains a new monster, Thunder Dragon. Joey ends up separated from them, but returns, fused with Red-Eyes B. Dragon and full of evil. As Joey fights the Pharaoh in Dark Warrior mode, Joey begins to wonder why he is attacking his friend and realizes this happens because of his fusing with Red Eyes. Breaking free of the evil controlling him, Joey separates form Red Eyes, sees the Blade of Chaos is stuck in its thigh. Removing it, Joey clears the third trial and claims Red Eyes as his monster. Everyone leaves through another glowing doorway.

They then end up in a jungle (where they learn that despite its apparent endless scenery, it is only as big as the game board itself). Their next test is to find a golden apple that "gives you a raise" and offer it up. Tristan finds a giant melon and draws a picture of himself on it. The fruit then falls down a hole, and everyone follows it to find themselves in a chamber with three long pedestals with an apple each on them. Tristan then notices his melon in the corner, which turns out to actually be a Petit Moth.

Everyone attempts to leave, but are then caught in a labyrinth. Joey eats some of the fruit he took from the forest and instantly becomes a genius. Right as he is about to figure out how to get out of the labyrinth, a Battle Ox chases him away from his equations. At the same time, Tea gets a Seiyaryu after defeating a Jirai Gumo. Hopelessly lost in the meantime, Tristan releases a Shovel Crusher and it careens around the labyrinth like a lunatic, collecting his allies and depositing them back at the apple room. However, there is a slight difference. An apple is missing and a Cocoon of Evolution is where Petit Moth was. It hatches into Great Moth and Yugi becomes the Dark Warrior to fight it. However, a Dark Magic Attack simply further evolves it into Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth. The Pharaoh then realizes that he must eat one of the apples to evolve Dark Magician in order to stand a chance against the moth. Doing so evolves his magician into Magician of Black Chaos and earns them victory. He then takes the remaining apple to an altar, which opens a doorway.

They then find themselves back at the camp where they were attacked by the Flower Wolves. The masked man appears and properly introduces himself as Alexander the Great. He then goes on to explain he once possessed the Millennium Ring, which he considered his lucky charm as it helped him conquer most of the world. However, prolonged possession of it caused a split personality to emerge (due to Zorc being sealed in the ring) and most of his retainers lost faith in him. He was then put to a test to see if he was still worthy to wear the ring by Shadi and was the first to participate in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters Collectible Figure Game.

However, though he was victorious in the trials, the door leading to the great power to rule the world did not open. This enraged his darker half into attacking his four vassals. It was then the pyramid punished him by splitting his soul in two. His darker half was sealed into the pyramid and he was sent to the game to act as a guide for future adventures. Alexander then gifts the monster-less Solomon with a new monster and tells him he will need it for the fifth trial.

They head to a village, where Alexander explains that the fifth trial involves destroying five different elemental dragons known as the Fiendish Five that terrorize the village. They find a girl about to sacrifice herself to give their dragon god the strength to keep the five away. However, they intervene and promise to slay the dragons. Solomon, using his new Curse of Dragon against Aqua Dragon, the Pharaoh faces Tyrant Dragon, Téa versus Serpent Night Dragon, Tristan battles Luster Dragon #2 and Joey fights Meteor Dragon. However, despite the aid of Yugi's new Black Luster Soldier, everyone fails to defeat the dragons and are forced to return to the village. The Pharaoh then learns of a sword that can slay the five only if a large power descends upon the village. Tricking the five into coming towards the village, the Pharaoh frees the sword and slays them. However, the defeated dragons transform into the Five-Headed Dragon. The girl from earlier prays for her god's help and her tears free the Blue Eyes White Dragon from its picture, and it fuses with the Pharaoh and slays the Fiendish Five once and for all.

With the trials now completed, everyone is about to be sent home, and Alexander is given permission to use Solomon's body as a means of taking himself out of the game.

They arrive outside to find Dr. Brisbane acting normal and concerned for their safety. He then wonders if they found anything interesting in the game, and Solomon presents the trial pendant, now fully lit. Right as the evil side of Alexander tries to grab the pendant, the good side jumps into Dr. Brisbane and seemingly subdues his evil side. However, it's a trick as the evil side was stronger and fused together with his weaker good half. Evil Alexander takes the pendant and runs up to the doors and successfully opens them after waiting for thousands of years. Everyone chases him into the room and they find themselves in an alternate dimension.

Shadi appears and wonders who should receive the power promised to the victor of his challenge. Though the Pharaoh protests that Evil Alexander cheated, Shadi points out that Alexander has a fair claim to the power as he tried himself and won thousands of years ago. To end the stalemate, Shadi announces one final Capsule Monsters battle. Evil Alexander summons the souls of his vassals to assist him and Good Alexander's Duel Armor.

Evil Alexander fuses with Reshef the Dark Being and sacrifices his retainers' monsters to summon his Seven-Armed Fiend, the apparition from Yugi's dreams. Everyone but Yugi's monsters are destroyed except for their dragons and Seven-Armed Fiend is destroyed. However, Evil Alexander decides to use the remaining monsters he used for his sacrifice to power Reshef and use his pawns' pain connection to them as a shield. However, the Pharaoh, disgusted with Evil Alexander for how he treats his loyal subjects, fuses with his friends' dragons to form the Armor of Unity and destroys Reshef. The evil side of Alexander is purged and the good Alexander tells the Pharaoh that his reign over Egypt is what inspired him to be pharaoh himself. Alexander then passes on with his vassals. Shadi wishes to gift the Pharaoh with the power promised, but he instantly turns it down. Shadi then muses to him that the one who can rule the world need not possess the power. The pyramid then begins to collapse, and everyone manages to escape safely.

They return to their pilots to discover the rescue plane has come. They talk the pilots into taking Solomon and Dr. Brisbane back to Domino City with them.

Dawn of the Duel arc
At the airport as Yugi prepared to board his flight, he unexpectedly met Joey, Tea and Tristan. He told them that they didn't have to come, but they insisted that they wouldn't miss this for the world.

At the airport in Egypt, Yugi and his friends were greeted by Ishizu, Marik and Odion, who brought them to an underground cavern in the desert, where the stone tablets from the museum had been relocated. As Yami held the Egyptian God cards up to the tablet, his spirit was sucked out of Yugi's body and into the Memory World. The portion of Yami Bakura's soul that had secretly been sealed in the Millennium Puzzle was also sucked into the Memory World, taking the rest of Yami Bakura's spirit from Ryo Bakura with it. Yugi reported that Yami Yugi was no longer present in his heart or the Puzzle.

Shadi appeared and confirmed that the pharaoh had left Yugi. He informed them that the pharaoh has gone to a world of his memories, which was created 3000 years ago (5,00 years agao in the English version) from the Pharaoh's experiences. Fearing Yami is in the same danger that sealed him in the Millennium Puzzle the first time around, Yugi, Joey, Tea and Tristan pleaded with Shadi to let them go to the Memory World to help Yami. Shadi explained that they must go through a doorway in the Millennium Puzzle to get there. Again Yugi insisted on going alone, but his friends wouldn't have it. Using the Millennium Key, Shadi brought the four them inside the Puzzle, where they began searching the labyrinth for the right door.

Yugi and company searched the inside of the Puzzle for a long time, but no no avail. Behind one of the doors they found Yami Bakura who turned into a monster and attacked them. After escaped Shadi informed them that that was the pharaoh's enemy in his true form. Since the maze reflected the pharaoh's heart, Yugi eventually started to feel it tremble as Yami Yugi was in danger. (In the English version, the temperature changed as the pharaoh's emotions changed.) Yugi realized that rather than calling for the pharaoh, they needed to wait for the pharaoh to call to them, so he got everyone to sit together and concentrate. This caused to labyrinth to open a door to the Memory World.

Yugi, Joey, Tea and Tristan entered the Ancient Egyptian Memory World, where Yugi no longer had the Millennium Puzzle. Despite looking out of place, no one took any notice of them. They quickly learned that other people could not see them and trying to touch solid matter, resulted in them phasing through it. Unknown to them, they had entered an RPG played by Yami Bakura and Yami Yugi, where they acted as non-playable characters.

The group found Bobasa, who like them could't be seen by most other people, but unlike them was able to touch objects. Chasing Bobasa led them to find Priest Seto saving Kisara. Recognizing him as the guy who looked like Kaiba from the tablet, they knew he worked for the pharaoh and followed him to the palace. Unlike other objects, they found that they couldn't phase through the palace gates. Bobasa reappeared and offered to help them.

The five of them fell asleep outside the palace until the gates finally opened as the pharaoh chased Thief Bakura on horseback, accompanied by the monster Ka Diabound and Slifer the Sky Dragon respectively. Yugi, Joey, Tea and Tristan ran after them and finally caught up with the pharaoh after he fell off his horse following Slifer's defeat. They were happy to find that the pharaoh could see them, as he asked Yugi in surprise if it was really him. By taking the pharaoh's hand, Yugi was able to give him some of his strength, enabling him to summon The Winged Dragon of Ra to battle Bakura's Diabound.

Ra initially defeated Diabound, but Yami Bakura, playing the RPG, used one of his Hourglass Tokens to turn back time to a few minutes previous. This time following Slifer's defeat, Diabound's attack smashed the ground below the pharaoh, causing him to fall into a chasm before Yugi and his friends could get to him. Yugi's friends briefly encountered Thief Bakura before being called by Bobasa to hide. Tea worried that the pharaoh may have lost his soul, since he just lost a Shadow Game, but Yugi reminded everyone that the world is built on the pharaoh's memories and since it still existed, he had to be okay.

The next day, Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan and Bobasa searched for the pharaoh along the River Nile. There they found Mana, who was able to see them and mistook Yugi for the pharaoh. When they started talking about looking for the pharaoh after Bobasa had found his cape, Mana realized that Yugi isn't the pharaoh. She quickly learned that they were his friends and joined their search party. The group were about to be attacked by Thief Bakura's men, shortly afterwards but Mana used her magic to raise the river and sweep the attackers away. As they continued their search Mana explained how only half her spells work, but Yugi told her how she resembled the card "Dark Magician Girl" and that if she kept practicing he's sure Mana could become as strong as the "Dark Magician Girl". Eventually the party found the pharaoh on the beach.

Yugi and his friends learned that Thief Bakura had taken the Millennium Puzzle from the pharaoh and was after the other Items too. The pharaoh told them that had only regained a fragment of his childhood memory and no one would tell him his real name. The pharaoh eventually left on horseback with Mana and asked that Yugi and the others return to their world and not get involved.

Tristan suggested that the pharaoh deliberately made himself lose his memory in order to forget information only he knew that someone would need to bring back the evil that he had locked away. Yugi and the others agreed that this must be his name, which had been erased from history. Yugi figured the pharaoh must have used it as a password to lock Zorc Necrophades away. Since the pharaoh was going to relive his battle with this creature, Yugi realized that without knowing his name, the pharaoh will lose this time. Determined to find out the pharaoh's name before the battle, they decided to go to the palace to see if there was some record of it.

This time at the palace, thinking to himself, Yugi asked the pharaoh to let them in it, and found he could pass through the palace gates. Inside the courtyard, he suggested that they split up to search and meet back in an hour. As they searched, Yami Bakura used another Hourglass Token to temporarily freeze time.

The five of them met-up again, finding Bobasa had eaten all the food in a storage room. Despite this, he was still hungry and couln't move without eating again. Tristan argued that Bobasa was no help and they should leave him. However Yugi pointed out that he had helped them find the pharaoh. The others agreed and helped Bobasa find something to eat. After finding some grapes they pulled him outside and let him eat them. The grapes finally filled Bobasa, who said this allowed him to grant their wish. His body inflated, allowing him to float in midair. He invited them to get on his back, so he could take them to see the pharaoh's name. He flew them to the pharaoh's tomb at the Valley of the Kings.

The inside of the tomb was filled with traps. Remembering Grandpa's story about his visit to the tomb, Yugi knew how the traps operated and was able to guide his friends safely through. They reached the room where Grandpa found the Millennium Puzzle, but were unable to find any clues there, so they began searching for another room.

Joey accidentally leaned on a hidden switch, unlocking a passageway. Possessed, Tristan ran ahead of everyone else, but found the room was empty. To everyone's surprise, Tristan read the hieroglyphics on the floor claiming they said that whoever solved the Millennium Puzzle must return the wish that they were granted in order to pass. Yugi claimed that what he wished for could never be returned, but after some coaxing admitted that he wished for friends. Tea and Joey were touched, having never heard this before.

Tristan pushed Yugi onto one eye pattern on the floor and pushed Joey and Téa onto another, where he joined them. The floor apart from the two eyes and a connecting beam gave away, leaving the two eyes balancing on a stone needle below the middle of the beam. (In the English version a pit of shadows is added below the platform. In the Japanese, it's just a long fall.) The beam turned, positioning Yugi's eye at a door to another room. Yugi was reluctant to go through as it would have meant losing his friends. After calling Yugi weak, Tristan leaped from the platform to the doorway, causing the platform to go off balance. Joey and Tea jumped off the platform and grabbed onto the ledge. Yugi ran after them and jumped catching onto Joey. The three of them climbed up and entered the room.

Inside the room, they found the name written on a wall. Unable to read it, they just memorized the hieroglyphics. As they looked around for Tristan, they spotted and exit and followed it.

Yugi, Joey and Tea were taken to a chamber with two sides connected by a bridge. Standing at the other side was Tristan who revealed he was possessed by Yami Bakura and took on his appearance. At the same time, the room shook as Zorc was about to be resurrected elsewhere. Yugi was able to defeat Yami Bakura in a duel in order for him to leave Tristan's body. Once Yami Bakura left Tristan for good, he was clueless on where his was. After explaining to Tristan what just happened, the chamber started to collapse. The quartet exited through a tunnel leading them to the side of a cliff.

After sliding down the cliff, Yugi and his friends were attacked by hooded riders. Like how Yugi and Yami Bakura were able to form Duel Disks, Yugi realized that if concentrated hard enough, their thoughts could become real. With no time to fight the riders, they imagined that they could fly and took off to find the pharaoh.

As Zorc was about to throw a fireball at the pharaoh, Yugi and his friends arrived. Zorc instead threw the fireball at them, saying that they should have stayed in their own world. The group dodged the attack, but saw some of Bakura's soldiers approaching. Preparing to fight, Yugi conjured a Duel Disk and the Deck that he and Atem built. He Summoned the "Dark Magician", who the pharaoh now recognized as Mahad. Joey, Tea, Tristan and Mana, who was at the palace, Summoned more monsters to battle the soldiers.

With the Monster Spirits battling Zorc and the soldiers, Yugi and his friends gathered around the pharaoh. They told him that they had seen his name and remember what it looked like, but were unable to read it. However after seeing the pharaoh's cartouche, Anzu suggested that they concentrate on making the hieroglyphics appear on it.

They all held their hands over the cartouche and tried this. Zorc tried to stop them by throwing another fireball in their direction, but Seto Kaiba appeared and used "Ring of Defense" to block the attack. Zorc launched another attack destroying the ring. Yugi and company managed to survive with the name engraved on the cartouche. The pharaoh declared that his name was Atem. Knowing this he was able to revive the Egyptian Gods and combine them into The Creator God of Light, Horakhty, who attacked and destroyed Zorc.

Yugi and Atem both found it weird having different names at first, having shared an identity since Yugi solved the Puzzle. Yugi said he felt a bit lonely, but it was okay. Even if their names are different, he said that they will still be a team. After saying goodbye to Priest Seto, Atem reached the end of his memories he could no longer exist in the Memory World, so he joined Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan and Kaiba to leave through an opening in the sky.

Ceremonial Battle arc
Both the Pharaoh and Yugi have obtained all 7 Millennium items and all 3 Egyptian God Cards. The Pharaoh has defeated Zorc Necrophades in the memory RPG and The Pharaoh has learned his name. Now it was time for the final test to see if Yami Yugi and Yugi were finally ready to separate for good; Atem would have to be defeated in a duel where he was actively trying to win, demonstrating that he had learned from Yugi that one did not need to win all the time and that defeat could teach us just as much as victory.

Originally planned to fly to Luxor via the Cairo International Airport, a sandstorm has brewed over the Valley of Kings, blocking that path but with the help of Marik and Ishizu Ishtar, they proceed to the Valley by boat from where its stated that the sandstorm might have not been without purpose due to the ancient belief that Ships carried kings or people back from the gods as it to say, travel from this world to the Land of the Dead (Afterlife). Both Joey and Kaiba asked Yugi if they could battle The Pharaoh. Yugi declined both requests, feeling that battling The Pharaoh was something he had to do to prove to himself that he was ready to separate from him.

The boat docked and everyone was waiting for him. Ishizu then lead them across the desert to an underground cavern to the back of the cavern there was a large door with a carving of The Eye of Wdjat which Ishizu explained would unravel the Pharaoh's spirit from Yugi's, further explaining that in order to pass on he must pact with the Rite of the Duel. Yugi approached the Shrine of The Millennium Items and placed all the items in their appropriate places. A wave of light passed over Yugi, his shadow split in two, then his body. The Pharaoh and Yugi walked opposite ways to the far sides of the cavern. The Final Duel had begun.

Yugi falls to his knees, cries and tells Atem that he (Yugi) is weak. Atem tells him that he would not cry if he were in his place. Yugi says that that is the point, he admits that he could not follow in the footsteps of Atem. Atem reminds him that he is not a coward and it was he who taught Atem about the principles needed to win. He also says that now he is leaving, there would be no one else for Yugi to follow and that there would only be one Yugi.

The Eye of Wdjat glows on the wall, and Ishizu says the spirit of the Pharaoh has been freed. Atem stands before the Eye and declares that he is Atem. The wall parts to reveal a glowing light, and Atem walks towards it. Téa, Joey and Tristan step forward, asking him if this is how it ends: Atem can't show up, change their lives, and leave.

Yugi says that they don't want to say goodbye, and Tea cries that while she know its for the best, it doesn't seem fair that Atem has to leave. They were just getting to know him, and Atem was just getting to know himself, but now he's leaving. She knows they should be happy for him, but its hard when they're losing their best friend and they don't understand why. Joey says there are some things they aren't supposed to understand: he goes through half his life like that. But he does know that while Atem's stay isn't as long as they'd like, they were lucky to know him at all. Atem silently thanks him, and Tea wishes him luck.

Joey shouts that Atem isn't going anywhere: the memories he gave each of them will remain in their hearts. Joey and Yugi give Atem a thumbs-up, and Atem returns the gesture as he walks forward. The Pharaoh's cloak and clothing appear around him as images of Adviser Siamun, Mana, Akhenamkhanen, and the six priests (Young Akhenaden, Mahado, Seto, Isis, Kalim and Shada) greet him. Atem vanishes into the light, the wall closing behind him.

The Wdjat temple then starts to crumble as the Millennium Stone shatters, scattering the Millennium Items in a bottomless pit. They all run away from the temple while Shadi's spirit watches the temple he protected crumble, his duty being fulfilled, the Pharaoh's spirit has gone to the Afterlife.

Yugi, Tea, Joey, Tristan, Duke, Grandpa, Kaiba, and Mokuba all leave Egypt and return to Japan. In the airport, they meet up with Rebecca and Serenity. Both Duke and Tristan fall for Serenity, but are pulled back by Joey. Rebecca hugs Yugi much to Tea's annoyance.

The credits end with a cutscene where Grandpa is sweeping while Yugi comes out from the house to join Téa, Joey and Tristan to go to school. Yugi ends the show by saying that his story has not ended and that his story is not about a pharaoh who after three thousand years defeated the evil Zorc.

In fact, he says that his story is just beginning. This alludes to the famous phrase "This isn't the legend of a Pharaoh. Everybody has his own story....The story that completes in the light. My story has just started." FIN

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (Anime)
His name is mention in one episode in the English version. When Jaden Yuki duels a lab chimpanzee, the scientist says the ape's name is Wheeler. This is a reference to Seto Kaiba once calling Joey a "Dueling monkey" in the english version.

Joey is mentioned by name, by Pegasus. He includes Joey in his top five Duelists as number three. Two being Seto Kaiba, and number one being Yugi Muto.

When Jaden is taken to the past to Duel against the younger Yugi, he picks up a flyer that has a picture of Yugi, Tea, Tristan, Joey and Kaiba.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's (Anime)
A duelist who looks like Joey is seen dueling at Daimon area. In the English version of  Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, someone asks if the duelist is Joey Wheeler. Someone else replies that it is his cousin Jesse Wheeler. In the Japanese version, this duelist was merely an unnamed background character.

Yu-Gi-Oh! movie 1
The events of Battle City have just concluded, and Yugi now owns all three Egyptian God cards. Seto Kaiba longs to finally defeat him, and he has a plan. He suspects that since Maximillion Pegasus created the Egyptian God cards, he would have also created a way to beat them, just in case something ever went wrong.

Kaiba heads off to Pegasus's castle and challenges him to a duel. The stakes are the following: if Pegasus wins, he gets Kaiba's three "Blue Eyes White Dragons"; if Kaiba wins, Pegasus hands over the card that can beat the Egyptian Gods. Kaiba wins, and Pegasus must fulfill his wager: he picks up two cards from Pegasus's decks. However, Pegasus only created one card to beat the Egyptian Gods, so where did the other card come from?

Meanwhile, Yugi Muto and Téa Gardner, seeking refuge from a mob of duelists wanting to face Yugi for the Egyptian Gods, stumble into Domino Museum, where they discover a new attraction on display called the Pyramid of Light, which looks a little like the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi's grandpa, Solomon Muto (who also happens to be visiting the museum), reads an inscription on the side of a sarcophagus (The eye that sees what's yet to come, its vision shall be fulfilled, unless blinded by events predetermined, thus light & shadows both be killed), triggering a strange vision in Yugi's mind concerning his Millennium Puzzle, the Pyramid of Light, Anubis, and Kaiba. After he wakes up, he finds the pyramid stolen, the sarcophagus now empty. Yugi also finds Mokuba standing outside. Mokuba says that Kaiba wants Yugi to bring his duel disk to the KaibaCorp Duel Dome immediately.

Yugi does so, transforming into Yami Yugi on the way, and finds Kaiba ready to duel. Seto asks Mokuba to seal all the exits, forcing Yugi to duel him, but not before Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor find their way in to watch.

The duel goes on for what seems like an eternity, and Yugi is starting to suspect that there are dark forces at work - especially when Kaiba activates a Trap Card called the "Pyramid of Light", which not only bears a striking resemblance to its namesake in the museum, but also prevents Yugi from using any of the Egyptian Gods! Before long, Kaiba has his "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" on the field, but to Yugi's surprise, he sacrifices it to summon a monster known as the "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon", which is even stronger!

The Pyramid of Light also pulls the souls of Yugi, Joey, and Tristan into Yugi's Millenium Puzzle, where they are chased by a group of mummies controlled by an unknown force...

Kaiba could win the duel there and then, but he wants to humiliate Yugi by wiping him out with his own Egyptian Gods! His "Pyramid of Light" removed the gods from play, and he wants to play "Return from the Different Dimension" to get them under his control. Of course, to do that, he needs to destroy his Pyramid of Light first, otherwise it would just destroy the gods again! Kaiba commands his "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon" to use its "Shining Nova" effect, which allows it to sacrifice itself to destroy anything on the field - and he aims it at the Pyramid of Light. Suddenly, a ghostly voice calls out, "This I cannot allow!", and the Pyramid stays exactly where it is. Then, a man rises up from behind Kaiba, throws him aside, and takes over the duel himself.

It's Anubis, the Egyptian Lord of the Dead, whom the Pharaoh destroyed 5000 years ago. But now he's back with the Pyramid of Light around his neck and two of his most powerful monsters - "Andro Sphinx" and "Spinx Teleia! On top of this, Téa, Joey, Tristan and Yugi are all trapped inside the Millennium Puzzle, leaving the Pharaoh to duel all alone. Putting all his faith into the cards, Yugi draws the "Double Spell" card, which allows him to discard his other spell card to activate "Monster Reborn" from Seto's Graveyard. He uses it to revive "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon", who then destroys the "Pyramid of Light" (after it was weakened by Yugi from inside the Millennium Puzzle), along with "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia". But Anubis's not done yet. With the Pyramid gone, he summons his last trick up his sleeve - "Theinen the Great Sphinx"! Yugi, however, activates "Reverse of Reverse" to activate Kaiba's "Return from the Different Dimension". The God Monsters return, destroy the Great Sphinx and Anubis is seemingly defeated. But a giant jackal - the ancient Egyptian representation of Anubis, the Lord of the Dead - rises from the remains of the Pyramid!

Kaiba and Yugi join forces, putting all their strength into the "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon" card, and using Shining Nova to destroy Anubis once and for all. On top of it all, Pegasus, who had earlier arrived via helicopter to help them, gets them out of the explosion in time. After this, Yugi thanks kaiba for all he's help. But brushes the thanks a side, and departs promising to defeat Yugi. Mokuba then leaves as well asking his brother to slow down. Yugi thanks his friends for helping him, and lastly talks to Yami Yugi.

Yu-Gi-Oh! movie 2
Joey is first seen on his motorcycle. As he hurriedly motorcycles to school while trying not to be late for class. His carelessness causes him to get soaked by a man emptying a bucket of water, and nearly knock over a policeman. Joey catches up with Tristan and with one minute before the school gate closes, Tristan gets onto the back of Joey's bike. The two speed downhill and get inside the gate, just as Mr. Karita closes it.

At lunchtime on the roof of the school, Yugi and his friends discuss their futures. Joey learns that Tea wishes to study dancing in New York. While Tristan is unhappy with the job, he has lined up working for his father. Joey on the other hand would like to become a professional Duelist, but needs to retrieve his Duel Disk, which has gotten old and broken. Whereas Yugi reckons he will stay working in Kame Game, helping his grandfather, because he wishes to become a game designer himself and create a game that will be enjoyed by children, all over the world. Tristan and Joey support his idea and offer to help him out. While Tea says that she is certain Yugi will succeed.

When Yugi and his friends return to class, they spot a new student. They think that they remember him, but struggle to think of his name, before Tristan finally says that it is Aigami.

After school, Yugi is walking with Joey and Tea. He and Joey have received back their Deck and Duel Disk respectively, that their teacher confiscated. As Yugi looks through his Deck, he thinks of Atem and pauses. Joey asks him what is wrong and although Yugi insists it is nothing, Joey realizes he is thinking of Atem and say that it is impossible to forget him. However Joey notices Aigami, being harassed by Kudaragi and his gang, with Kudaragi commenting on Aigami's cute face and making provocative remarks. Joey jumps down from the bridge and approaches the group. Aware of Joey's past in a gang, Kudaragi and his companions let the matter drop for the time being and leave Aigami alone for the time being, but Kudaragi instructs Aigami to meet him at the KaibaCorp construction site later and threatens him, should he not show up. Aigami thanks Joey.

At a mall, Yugi, Tea, Tristan and Bakura are sitting at Devlin's cafe, being served by Duke Devlin, while in the news, it is reported that Kudaragi and his gang have disappeared. Nearby, Joey is wearing a dog costume, walking around, handing out balloons. When he hears Kaiba appear on screens across the mall and introduces his new Duel Disk, which he says will be demonstrated in an exhibition Duel at Kaiba Land. Joey becomes angry that he will not be able to afford the new Duel Disk. But he gets more angry that Tristan complains about his job. This causes them to start fighting. But when Tea tries to break them up, Joey eats her ice cream, while continuing to fight. However Joey's boss, Mr. Clown, sees this and fires him. Therefore he begs him not to fire him.

Later Joey wakes up on the top of a flying KaibaCorp blimp, where Kaiba is patronizingly towering over him. He taunts him about the new Duel Disk, saying that a commoner (凡骨 bonkotsu) like him will never be able to afford it and teasingly asks if he wants it. Joey falls off the blimp, but wakes from his dream, during the graduation rehearsal at school, falling out of his chair.

He then goes bowling with Aigami and then head to Burger World. The group tell Aigami stories about their adventures together, including their trip to Egypt, which Aigami says he would look to hear more about. Joey shows his Deck to Aigami, praises Yugi's Dueling skills. Aigami then shows interest in Dueling Yugi, but Joey says that he will have to get through him first, so Yugi invites them to have a Duel tournament at his house.

While walking with Aigami and Bakura as they are on their way to visit Yugi, who has arranged to face Aigami in a friendly Duel. Joey and Bakura get to see Aigami's Quantum Cube, which he says is a Deck case, and was given to him by someone important to him. Bakura mentions having once had an item that his father brought back from Egypt and Aigami replies that he would like to hear more of this story.

While Aigami uses his powers on Bakura to learn about the Millennium Ring, Joey tries to intervene, but a group of children appear and tell him that Aigami wishes to speak with Bakura and he is being a bother. Joey is sent to another dimension, where he finds himself in a street, with other people walking past him. The world begins to dissolve around him and Aigami appears in the sky, taunting him, saying that he is worthless and cannot escape.

As Joey is inside the dissolving dimension, Joey begins to fall and his body begins to fade away with the rest of the world. However there is a flash of light and Joey sees Atem. Joey then finds himself back in his own world, where Yugi, Tea and Tristan and relieved to find him, but still worried about Bakura. However Joey begins to tell Yugi, about him seeing Atem, but stops himself and says it is nothing, before rushing to help find Bakura. While Joey, Téa and Tristan celebrate Yugi's victory during the first half of the duel, a light appears in the audience, as Bakura is brought back to their world.

When the duel is over for good, Joey, Tea, Tristan and Bakura congratulate Yugi. However when Yugi informs them that he saw Atem. Joey mentions seeing him earlier too and the group is approached by Kaiba, who is interested in the fact that they saw Atem. Later as Yugi reads his speech during the graduation ceremony, Joey and Tristan start to cry uncontrollably. Joey is lastly seen at the airport, watching Tea leave to go to America.

Video Games
Joey Wheeler appears in the following video games:
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters Coliseum
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist Link Evolution
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Power of Chaos Joey the Passion
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction

Quotes

 * (About Rex) On second thought I don't like him he makes me mad.
 * Did anyone bring any food with them?

Serenity Wheeler
Although they were separated as kids when their parents divorced, Joey and Serenity care deeply for each other. When Joey learns that Serenity needs money for an eye surgery, he enters the Duelist Kingdom tournament to win the money necessary to perform the surgery. The first thing Serenity does after recovering her eyesight is save Joey's life. Serenity generally admires Joey, who in turn acts protective of his sister, becoming angry with Tristan and Duke when they flirt with her.

Yugi Muto
Joey and Tristan used to bully Yugi, but after Yugi defended Joey and Tristan against Ushio, Joey and Yugi became very close friends. When Yami Yugi was unable to snap Joey out of Marik's brainwashing, Yugi took over - Yami Yugi conceded that Yugi was closer to Joey than he was - and succeeded in bringing Joey back to his senses. Shortly thereafter, each proved they were willing to die for the other, as Yugi chose to lose a duel in which the loser drowned so as to save Joey, and as Joey then gave up his own chance to escape drowning to save Yugi from the same. When Joey is unconscious after his duel with Yami Marik, Yugi only continues participating in the tournament because the Millenium Necklace tells him that's the way to save Joey. Similarly, after Yugi's soul is taken by the Orichalcos, Joey decides to challenge Doma himself in order to save Yugi.

Yami Yugi/Atem
Joey is close friends with Yami Yugi, and each risks his life to help the other countless times. In Battle City, Joey calls Yami Yugi the "true duelist", and makes it his goal to become a duelist worthy of dueling Yami Yugi. When Joey is unconscious after his duel with Yami Marik, Yami Yugi only continues participating in the tournament because the Millenium Necklace tells him that's the way to save Joey; Joey exhibits similar selfless behavior in return when he continues to support Yami Yugi after Yami Yugi's corruption led to Yugi's loss, choosing not to blame Yami Yugi for what had transpired and instead urging Yami Yugi to fight to get Yugi back. When Yami Yugi was depress when Yugi's soul was thinking,he blamed himself for what happen to Yugi. Joey kept telling him to stop blaming himself. But Yami kept saying it was all his fault. Joey punched Yami Yugi in order to make him snatch out of depression, but it didn't work still. On the train, he told Tea, that Yami Yugi is already alone. But he will feel better once he is reunited with Yugi. After Yami Yugi won the duel against Dartz, Joey was happy that Yugi was back with Yami Yugi. Joey even help out Yami Yugi battle the Great Leivathan. On the boat ride to the Pharaoh's tomb, Joey tells Tristan and Duke that although he doesn't want to see Yami Yugi go, he supports it because he knows it's best for Yami Yugi. As Yami Yugi leaves, Joey cries, but he encourages the others to let Yami Yugi go to the afterlife, while saying that, "Even in 1000 years, you're still our partner". When Joey is about to get kill in Deeva's dimension, Joey sees Atem and this makes him return to his friends. After Deeva is defeated for good, Joey asks Yugi if Atem asked about him when Yugi saw him again for the first time in years.

Tristan Taylor
Joey and Tristan are close friends. While Tristan pokes fun at Joey and Joey is annoyed with Tristan's behavior towards Serenity their deep friendship can be seen in Tristan's horrified reaction both times Joey lost shadow games.

Tea Gardner
Joey became friends with Tea through Yugi.

Seto Kaiba
At the series' start, Joey and Seto dislike each other, neither showing any respect for the other. In particular, Joey dislikes Seto's arrogant behavior, and Seto considers Joey a weak duelist. However, over the course of the series, each individual shows concern, empathy, and/or respect for the other several times. When Marik is controlling Joey into dueling Yugi with the duelists' lives on the line, Seto is worried that for the duelists' safety; he works hard to call off the duel. Later, when Noah offers Yami Yugi the opportunity to save all of Yugi's friends - including Serenity. If Yami Yugi lets Noah keep Seto trapped in the Virtual World, Joey insists that Yami Yugi keep fighting in order to save the Kaiba brothers. Including for Yami Yugi to maintain the bond the Kaiba brothers share. Later, Seto comes to respect Joey as a duelist after Joey withstands Ra's attack, and Joey in turn gains enough respect for Seto to actively root for him in Seto's match against Zigfried.

Mai Valentine
When Joey and Mai first meet, Mai cares only about winning and is rude to Joey. However, Joey and the rest of his friends soon become friends with Mai. After this, Joey and Mai grow continually closer, with Mai giving Joey the pass he needs to get into the Duelist Kingdom finals, Joey saving Mai from Jean-Claude Magnum, and Joey breaking Yami Marik's hold over Mai and shielding her from Ra's attack. When Mai joins Doma, Joey makes it his goal to bring her back to her senses, willingly sacrificing his soul to the Orichalcos to do so. Over the course of the series they come to care deeply for each other's well-being. Ultimately, Mai, ashamed for her behavior as part of Doma, leaves the other characters to reevaluate her life, but she states that she will return to Joey.

Knownable Relatives

 * Mrs. Wheeler (Mother)
 * Mr. Wheeler (Father)
 * Serenity Wheeler (Little Sister)
 * Mai Valentine (Love Interest)
 * Yugi Muto and Yami Yugi (Best Friends)
 * Jeese Wheeler (Cousin)
 * Seto Kaiba (#1 Rival)
 * Crow Hogan (True Counterpart)

Trivia
Joey has some similarities with Inuzuka Kiba from Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden.
 * His birthday is January 25, and his bloodtype is B.
 * His favorite food is curry rice along with streak and shrimp. While his least favorite food is ???.

Voice Actresses & Actors

 * Japanese : Hiroko Takahashi (Teenager), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Season 0 & Yu-Gi-Oh! The movie)
 * Japanese voice actress : Mariko Nagahama (Child)
 * English : Wayne Grayson (all media)

all information on Joey Wheeler came from http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Joey_Wheeler