Serenity Wheeler

Serenity Wheeler aka Shizuka Kawai in the manga and Japanese version of the anime.She is Joey Wheeler's younger sister. The two were separated at a very young age when their parents got divorced. In both series of the anime and the manga, Serenity is depicted as being a sweet natured, gentle, fragile and dependent young girl. She has a small fragile body, flowing auburn (brown/red) hair, and gentle dull greenish brown eyes. Throughout the whole series she is pictured as gentle but strong, with a never changing attitude of high spirits.

Appearance
Serenity's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi. In the second series anime, Serenity wears light blue shorts and long white socks with Blue sneakers. Her top is a sleeveless pink and white shirt with a high collar that is worn on top of a short-sleeved yellow shirt. She does not change this outfit throughout the series except when she is in the hospital, where she wears simple pink pajamas. The photo Joey Wheeler has of her in his wallet shows her dressed in a sailor fuku common to middle school students in Japan. In the manga, she wears longer sleeves and jeans rather than the shorter clothes that she wears in the anime.

Personality
Serenity is a gentle-natured and compassionate girl who is rather dependent on her friends and seems to be generally more timid than the other females. She is also shown to be extremely trusting to the point of naivety, believing Tristan when he says, in an attempt to impress her during her recovery from her operation, that he taught Joey everything he knows about Duel Monsters. However Serenity has shown to have her own inner strength, such as when she took off her bandages to see for the first time, to save Joey by diving into the water. Serenity also after an inward struggle of self blame, was the key to defeating Nezbitt and she pulled through. Optimism seems to be one of her key features, which one would need to survive nearly going blind, being aware she may not get the operation. (Prior to Duelist Kindgom.) Serenity was separated from her older brother Joey to live with their mother when their parents divorced, but they seemed to have kept in contact over the years, as Serenity looks up to him and they both love each other dearly; during Duelist Kingdom Joey is seen to have a picture of her in his wallet. Joey often states that Serenity was his biggest inspiration throughout Duelist Kingdom and Battle City. She shares a strong bond with Téa Gardner and Mai Valentine, and Tea even takes her sight-seeing at one point.

Serenity's character is portrayed as a very beautiful young girl, capturing the romantic interests of both Tristan and Duke. This leads them to constantly argue over her during the Battle City arc and both eventually end up giving her their number. It is never shown if she ever liked either of them as more than friends, though she is always amused at their antics and even looks relieved at one point where Tristan drags Duke away from her. But she did seem to be more fond of Tristan than of Duke. Her innocent nature was even able to make one as self-centered as Seto Kaiba be considerate enough to get medical help for Bakura even during the Battle City Tournament.

Background
Serenity and Joey were separated at a young age due to their parents' divorce, and Serenity went to live with her mother who was working as a nurse while Joey with his father who was a alcoholic gambler.

Duelist Kingdom Saga
Joey receives a video tape from Serenity. In it, she tells him that time is running out for her because she needs an operation to repair her eyesight or else she will go blind. The operation, however, is very expensive and to pay for it, Joey needs to win the three million dollar prize at the Duelist Kingdom tournament. Despite not having an invitation, Joey is allowed on the ship after Yugi gives him one of his Star Chips. Yugi also gives him the three million dollars he won to Joey so he can pay for Serenity's eye operation.

Battle City Saga
After her operation, Battle City begins. Serenity spends most of the tournament in the hospital recovering with Tristan taking care of her. She finally removes the bandages around her eyes and sees clearly for the first time when the entire gang is sent to the Domino Pier, where Yugi and a Marik Ishtar-controlled Joey are Dueling. After Joey breaks free from Marik, he and Yugi are dragged into the ocean. Joey sets Yugi free from his shackles and Serenity dives in with the key for Joey's chains and saves him. In the manga Shizuka is present, but Joey Wheeler is instead rescued by Kaiba, who simply drops the key needed into the water. Afterwards, she hangs out with the gang for the finals and becomes friends with Mai Valentine and Téa Gardner, who both treat her like a younger sister.

Vitural World Saga
''The Battle City blimp got sucked into a mechanical fortress in the sea, by Noah Kaiba. Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Téa, Serenity, Duke, Kaiba and Mokuba exited the blimp, where they were greeted by a projection of the Big Five, who explained that they got trapped in the Virtual World, after they failed to trap Kaiba there, during the Legendary Heroes game. For that they hate Yugi and his friends for helping Kaiba. Having Kaiba as a common enemy, Noah uploaded their minds into his computer system. Using an altered form of Duel Monsters, they planned to face the gang in order to claim possession of their bodies, so that they may exist in the real world.[70] ''

The group were then transported to a virtual jungle, where they are given a demonstration of the Deck Master rules.[70] The Big Five then separated the gang, by making holes appear under them.[71] 

She Duels once alongside Tristan Taylor and Duke Devlin against a member of the Big Five, Nezbitt but is not very experienced. She goes into a state of shock after Tristan loses, feeling responsible for getting him involved in the first place, but regains her confidence and, reflecting on the basic rules she learned from Tristan earlier, barely wins.

After the Duel, the gang tried to find Tristan, before the Big Five took his body. They briefly met up with Kaiba and Mokuba, but were attacked by Nezbitt in possession of Tristan's body. The real Tristan in the body of a robot monkey helped them fight the imposter. However Nezbitt kidnapped Mokuba and Kaiba took off after him, leaving the others think about what to do with the monkey, not knowing it was Tristan.[77]

''The group took a pick-up truck to go after Kaiba. On the way, they found out the monkey was Tristan after he accidentally flipped a switch, allowing him to speak normally.[78] ''

Noah transported Yugi, Téa and Kaiba back to their friends, where they were confronted by the Big Five, now all sharing possession of Tristan's body. Yugi and Joey teamed-up to duel them in order to win back Tristan's body.[80] Although Yugi and Joey won, the Big Five attempted to steal their bodies, but Noah took them away, along with Tristan's body, before they could.[81]  

Since Noah designed the robot monkey, Yugi and his friends searched it for clues. Yugi pushed a red button, which transported them to a virtual Kaiba Land. From there the gang took a handcar through a subway and wound up on the scene of Noah and Seto Kaiba's Duel.[82]  

Noah won and turned Seto and Mokuba to stone. This caused Yugi to get mad and change to Yami, who accused Noah of foul play, as he had used Mokuba as a shield to help him win. As Yami, Yugi combined his Deck with Seto's and continued the Duel.[83] Noah gradually turned Yugi's friends to stone as Yami dueled, until none of them were left. Yugi then offered Yami support and took him to his soul room. Inside he brought Yami to a room containing his recent memories, where everyone, who had been turned to stone offered their support. Back in virtual reality, Yami imagined Yugi's friends giving him the cards drawn by "Card of Sanctity". With them, Yami Summoned Kaiba's three "Blue-Eyes White Dragons" to win the Duel against Noah.[84]  

After the Duel, Noah attempted to steal Yugi's body and escape to the real world, but the power of the Millennium Puzzle forced him back. After Noah found out that Gozaburo had been using him, he tried to help everyone escape the virtual world and took them to a virtual Domino City. The group got separated and met-up again, minus the Kaibas.[85] Having realized Noah double crossed them, Yugi started to blame himself for trusting Noah.[86] 

Gozaburo had monsters attack Yugi and his friends as they looked for a way out, but Yugi and Joey fought them off by Summoning monsters from their Decks. Noah, having stolen Mokuba's body and escaped to the real world, organized a missile attack to destroy the fortress, including the servers for the virtual world. After having a change of heart, he contacted the group and explained that they must get out out quickly before the virtual world is destroyed.[86]  ''

Noah told them to go the arcade. Yugi, Duke and Joey fought off more of Gozaburo's monsters, while Téa, Serenity and Tristan went there. When Yugi, Duke and Joey got to the arcade, Noah asked Yugi to go and get Seto before returning himself.[87] 

''Yugi complied and went to the KaibaCorp building, catching Seto shortly after he beat Gozaburo in a Duel. Gozaburo took the form of a monster and chased the two. Noah instructed them to jump off the building. With no other option they complied and awoke in the real world, before hitting the ground.[87] '' 

Yugi, Kaiba and Mokuba ran to escape the fortress before the missile strike and were helped onto the moving blimp by Joey and Tristan, shortly before the fortress got destroyed.[87] 

Battle City Finals Saga
Serenity was in charge of taking care of Mai Valentine, who was unconscious after losing to Yami Marik. During Joey's Duel she was asked by Ishizu Ishtar to go and see the Duel while she took care of Mai, but when she arrived, Joey fainted and lost the Duel. When the tournament ended, she went back to Japan.

One day, Téa was walking through Domino City and met with Serenity. Téa showed the city to Serenity, she explained where some Duels took place and other important events.

Waking the Dragons Saga
Serenity is seen briefly in the Waking the Dragons arc, when Joey calls her to say goodbye.

Ceremonial Battle Saga
as a montage narrated by Maximillion Pegasus just before the Ceremonial Battle, as Pegasus says that everyone whom Yugi and his friends met was destined to play a role in his journey. She is not seen again until the last episode during the Japanese version's end credits, though in the Japanese version.

Knownable Relatives

 * Mrs.Wheeler (mother)
 * Joey Wheeler (older brother)
 * Tea Gardner and Mai Valentine (best friends)

Voice Actresses
Japanese : Mika Sakenobe

English : Lisa Oritz