History Characters / YuGiOhDuelists

"Ghost" Kozuka is first introduced as one of Bandit Keith's henchmen, alongside his friends Satake and Takaido. Seeking to scope out the competition, Keith sets Kotsuzuka and Jonouchi/Joey against one another; when Kozuka is defeated, Keith beats him up and steals his Star Chips. Kozuka resurfaces alongside Takaido and Satake during the Battle City arc, where he makes the fatal mistake of [[AbsurdlyHighStakesGame challenging Dark Bakura in a Shadow Game]].

* ChristmasCake: Actually, [[CelibateHero by her own choice]]. She ''did'' have a HopelessSuitor in an anime filler episode and blew him off, defeating him in a duel when he wouldn't give up.

* BareYourMidriff: Several of her outfits.

* MindRape: Subverted. Even though she has a Millennium Item, she's the only character that is never seen using Shadow Game magic. No Penalty Games, either.

* VillainyFreeVillain: Never does anything particularly wrong in the manga but is treated like an antagonist, mostly out of association with Haga, best exemplified by him never actually cheating. That said, he does play it straight during the Doma Arc.

* AdaptationalBadass: In the manga, Jonouchi kicks his ass in a fistfight. In the anime, Keith catches his punches and beats up Kozuka, Takaido, and Satake all at once. He's even more awesome in the video games; in ''VideoGame/YuGiOhReshefOfDestruction'', he takes over the Rare Hunters/Ghouls after Marik's HeelFaceTurn and leads them in invading and occupying Domino City. When you duel him as a boss, he even summons the Winged Dragon of Ra against you! [[spoiler:Okay, he summons it stuck in Sphere Mode since he doesn't know the chant to unlock it, but it's the thought that counts.]]

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: She's sometimes treated as a MemeticLoser due to losing most of her onscreen duels, but she wins enough offscreen matches in both the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City arcs to make the finals. In the Doma Arc, she even manages to defeat Pegasus.

** The end of her duel with Marik. On paper, it seems that she has the means to win the duel by just declaring an attack, though in practice it's not so[[note]]Marik only has Holding Arms in Attack position with 500 ATK and 1050 Life Points, while Mai has summoned Cyber Harpie with 1800 ATK. However, Marik's monster is invincible to attack for 3 turns after being summoned, a condition which hadn't worn off by the time Mai summoned Cyber Harpie[[/note]]. However, Mai ''still'' had a few other moves she could have made that would have more or less secured her victory in a few turns. Meanwhile, after stealing the Winged Dragon of Ra from Marik halfway through the duel and deciding then to play it, she goes to try and beat Marik with it. This is despite a first-hand demonstration in the previous duel that using the card is highly dangerous.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Combined with HoistByHisOwnPetard. His bet against Jonouchi to take Time Wizard is what gave Jonouchi the idea to use the card against him, and win the duel.

* [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instinct]]: Joins Battle City to try to save her brother.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Played straight with some of his monsters, subverted with [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Two Headed King Rex]].

* OvershadowedByAwesome: Even though he never manages to make it to the same level of dueling fame that Yugi and Kaiba have reached, [[ThrowtheDogaBone he and Weevil still manage to remain household names in the dueling world and never fade into obscurity.]]

* VillainyFreeVillain: Never does anything particularly wrong in the manga but is treated like an antagonist, mostly out of association with Haga, best exemplified by him never actually cheating. That said, he does play in straight during the Doma Arc.
* TheWorfEffect: Every time he duels someone in the manga he's defeated either by cheating (Mai and Esper) or dumb luck (Jonouchi). While nothing says Haga cheated to beat him, it's not unlikely that he did considering Haga's tactics. Since Rex is only ever beaten in the series by people who cheated or got lucky, its possible he's a great duelist who has bad luck and it paints him as a worse duelist than he actually is.

* StartMyOwn: He's the only duelist aside form Jounouchi who have an actual plan for the prize money in Duelist Kingdom; he wants to buy his own boat and become a professional fisherman like his father. The series finale shows him at the helm of an impressive fishing trawler, implying that he succeeded.

* BondVillainStupidity: He is shown to have a knife/gun that he used to threaten Pegasus for his prize money yet it didn't occur to him that he can use said weapon earlier to threaten other duelists for their star-chips. Granted there may be risk of eyewitnesses where he could be ejected from the island but he could have simply threaten Jonouchi and his friends for their star-chips without the risk of being caught after Kozuka lost the duel.

* TheBrute: In the manga he beats up his henchmen and Yugi, while in the anime he beats up Jonouchi and sets a warehouse on fire.

*** He seems to have a particular affinity towards Machine-type monsters, hinting at how he sees other people as tools to be used without remorse. In his battle against Joey Wheeler in the Duelist Kingdom finals, his signature card "Metalmorph" is used to turn the Fiend-type monster "Zoa" into a Machine-type, reflecting his dehumanizing behaviour.

** He walks Ghost Kozuka through his duel with Jonouchi, so that he can see every card Jonouchi has. He beats up Kozuka, Takaido, and Satake and steals their Star Chips after Kozuka's defeat, and traps Yugi, Jonouchi, Anzu, Honda, and Bakura in an underground labyrinth. Keith then steals Jonouchi's entry card to try and avoid their duel, and hides his set of "7 Completed" cards inside his wristbands during their match. And yet he still gets his ass kicked by Jonouchi. All of this caused Pegasus to either kill him in the manga or eject him from the island and into the ocean, depending on the version.
** Jounouchi even lampshades this in the dub, pointing out that Keith's cheating will only get him so far, until he runs into an opponent who's dueling for something more than winning for winnings sake.

* GoodEyesEvilEyes: They're typically hidden by SinisterShades, but when we do see Keith's eyes they're small, narrow and veiny.

* HiddenDepths: Keith's one of the few players who thought to make full use of the Arena itself to his advantage. Knowing full well that the hologram will at least show a monster on the field, he drops Zoa to bait Jonouchi into a trap. Likewise, because of the distance in the arenas, Keith knew his opponent wouldn't likely see Keith's 7 Completes or other hidden cards in his wristband. His degree of cheating is much more subtle and effective than Haga's.

* JerkassHasAPoint: His frequent claims that Pegasus is a cheater are one hundred percent right, if blatantly hypocritical.

* KarmaHoudini: In the anime, he survives Duelist Kingdom and is set free from Marik's mind control after burning the warehouse down, almost killing Yugi in the process. Keith's never seen again despite all the trouble he caused. The games have him go even further and take over Marik's Rare Hunters, all without consequence to himself.

* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: His ejection from the tournament in the anime dub. When he hits the water, he simply says "ouch."

* PermaStubble: In the manga Keith has quite a bit of stubble, while in the anime he's more cleanshaven.

* RussianRoulette: Played it in his depression over his loss to Pegasus in the manga. Because of this, his Penalty Game involved his hand morphing into a gun and being forced to play Russian Roulette, shooting himself in the head and dying.
* SchrodingersCast: In the manga, he's killed in his Shadow Game with Pegasus, but in the ''R'' spin-off, which is debated canon, he is revived by the Evil Gods. In the anime, he's dropped into the sea instead of being killed by Pegasus's Penalty Game and is found and brainwashed by Marik. Then in the video games ''VideoGame/YuGiOhTheSacredCards'' and ''VideoGame/YuGiOhReshefOfDestruction'', he becomes the new leader of the Rare Hunters/Ghouls after Marik reforms and christens them the Neo Ghouls.

"Ghost" Kozuka is first introduced as one of Bandit Keith's henchmen, alongside his friends Satake and Takaido. Seeking to scope out the competition, Keith sets Kotsuzuka and Jonouchi/Joey against one another; when Kozuka is defeated, Keith beats him up and steals his Star Chips. Kozuka resurfaces alongside Takaido and Satake during the Battle City arc, where he makes the fatal mistake of [[AbsurdlyhighStakesGame challenging Dark Bakura in a Shadow Game]].

* AdaptationalJerkass: For the most part, his original and sub personality aren't too different, but he doesn't come off as the nicest guy when he's first introduced in the dub, right after beating Rex Raptor and winning his Serpent Night Dragon. In the original, he says it's an okay card, but doesn't fit with his Psychic deck (which is true), in the dub, he says it's worthless and only fitting to be used as a coaster.

* {{Foil}}: To Bandit Keith. While both a cheater and a {{Jerkass}}, he eventually sees the error of his ways thanks to Jonouchi; Keith never reforms. Also, both Roba and Keith use Machines but have different strategies. Keith's decks are [[AttackAttackAttack straightforward offense]] while Roba is primarily a control deck.

%%* LargeHam

* SmallRoleBigImpact: He's minor character Jounouchi faced in Battle City, but the Jinzo card he wins due to the ante rule ends up becoming a key card that he regularly uses, unlike the cards he won from Haga and Kajiki which only showed up in his fight with Rishid [[note]]In the manga, Legendary Fisherman appears noticeably more often, due to it being a level 4 monster there.[[/note]]

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Does this to Jounouchi after he said he's a failure as a Duelist.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Does this to Joey after he said he's a failure as a Duelist

* NecessaryWeasel: The Exodia cards would have trivialized the plot for Yugi, so ''something'' needed to separate the two. Why not make it an EstablishingCharacterMoment for the series' HateSink?

[[/folder]]

* StatuesqueStunner: At 175 cm, she can easily stand eye to eye with Katsuya Jounouchi/Joey Wheeler.

** The end of her duel with Marik. On paper, it seems that she has the means to win the duel by just declaring an attack, though in practice it's not so[[note]]Marik only has Holding Arms in Attack position with 500 ATK and 1050 Life Points, while Mai has summoned Cyber Harpie with 1800 ATK. However, Marik's monster is invincible to attack for 3 turns after being summoned, a condition which hadn't worn off by the time Mai summoned Cyber Harpie[[/note]]. However, Mai ''still'' had a few other moves she could have made that would have more or less secured her victory at some point. Meanwhile, after stealing the Winged Dragon of Ra from Marik halfway through the duel and deciding then to play it, she goes to try and beat Marik with it. This is despite a first-hand demonstration in the previous duel that using the card is highly dangerous.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Much like plenty of the manga's early villains, when Yugi first met Haga, he seemed like a ''very'' nice guy, nicer than Ryuzaki ironically enough. He was very polite overall, gave some advice to both Yugi and Jounouchi, and seemed pretty tame to the GenreBlind. Yugi liked and admired him right after meeting him, which was why he [[WhatAnIdiot trusted the complete stranger with handling his grandfather's cards despite their not being water-proof and a large body of water being nearby.]] It was more noticeable in the Japanese version than in the English dub, in which he sounded unbelievably sarcastic the entire time. Now, of course, fans know [[{{Jerkass}} what]] [[SmugSnake he's really like]].

** The end of her duel with Marik. On paper, it seems that she has the means to win the duel by just declaring an attack, though in practice it's not so[[note]]Marik only has Holding Arms in Attack position with 500 ATK and 1050 Life Points, while Mai has summoned Cyber Harpie with 1800 ATK. However, Marik's monster is invincible to attack for 3 turns after being summoned, a condition which hadn't worn off by the time Mai summoned Cyber Harpie[[/note]]. However, Mai ''still'' had a few other moves she could have made that would have more or less secured her victory. Meanwhile, after stealing the Winged Dragon of Ra from Marik halfway through the duel and deciding then to play it, she goes to try and beat Marik with it. This is despite a first-hand demonstration in the previous duel that using the card is highly dangerous.

** The end of her duel with Marik. On paper, it seems that she has the means to win the duel by just declaring an attack, though in practice it's not so[[note]]Marik only has Holding Arms in Attack position with 500 ATK and 1050 Life Points, while Mai has summoned Cyber Harpie with 1800 ATK. However, Marik's monster is invincible to attack for 3 turns after being summoned, a condition which hadn't worn off by the time Mai summoned Cyber Harpie[[/note]]. Meanwhile, after stealing the Winged Dragon of Ra from Marik halfway through the duel and deciding then to play it, she goes to try and beat Marik with it. This is despite a first-hand demonstration in the previous duel that using the card is highly dangerous.

* TookALeveLInKindness: While she was never really cruel, she was very arrogant and had a mindset that duelists could only rely on themselves with friendship just getting in the way. Being beaten by Joey and especially Panik causes her to reassess her opinion, and from then on she's much more an ally who happens to be a bit of a prima-donna than the RichBitch she started as.

* BikerBabe: She shows herself to be adept at riding a motorcycle in the Doma FillerArc.

** Also serves as an EvilCounterpart for Jounouchi/Joey for being both duelists that rely on gambling and offensive strategies.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Knowing that she doesn't stand a chance against Black Luster Soldier after it destroyed her Harpie's Pet Dragon, Mai surrenders immediately after her turn begins. Played with in her duel against Anzu- she surrenders even though she had a chance to win, just to have a reason to return the Star Chips.

* TheWorfEffect: Every time he duels someone in the manga he's defeated either by cheating (Mai and Esper) or dumb luck (Jonouchi). While nothing says Haga cheated to beat him, it's not unlikely that he did considering Haga's tactics. Since Rex is only ever beaten in the series by people who cheated or got lucky, its possible he's a great duelist who has bad luck and it paints him as a worser duelist than he actually is.