Alexis Rhodes

Alexis Rhodes (Asuka Tenjouin in the Japanese version) is the main female protagonist in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. She is the best female duelist in Duel Academia, and has a very keen eye for details, being able to read every one of her opponents moves. She forces her opponents to play their best cards, that way making her victory much more satisfying. She is shown to have some sort of interest (and possible attraction) towards Jaden Yuki. Being the smartest at the academy of all the girls, Alexis has many boys who find her attractive. However, Alexis' personality is more geared toward the game than love. In the anime, Alexis plays a "Cyber Girl" deck and used "White Night" deck when she was brainwashed into the Society of Light by Takuma Saiou, while in the manga she plays an "Ice" deck. In the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Alexis moves into an available room at the Osiris Red dormitory to try to avoid the professor of the Obelisk Blue dorm, Cronos de Medici.
In the Japanese version, she is voiced by Sanae Kobayashi, who also voices Reiko Natsume from Natsume's Book of Friends. In the English version, she is voiced by both Priscilla Everett in the first 26 episodes, and by Anna Morrow onward. A version of Alexis from an alternate dimension also appears in Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, with Kobayashi and Murrow reprising their roles in the Japanese and English version respectively.
==Appearance==
===Yu-Gi-Oh! GX===
Alexis' character design was overseen by Kenichi Hara. Her usual outfit consists of the standard female Obelisk Blue uniform, complete with an optional pair of fingerless gloves. Her dark blond hair is sporadically arranged, with a large portion trailing the upper part of the nape of her neck. She has brown colored eyes. She carries an Academia-issued Duel Disk on her left arm. During her senior year, she carries a duel disk with blue trim representing the Obelisk Blue dorm on her left arm.
When she was brainwashed into the Society of Light, She wears a white uniform from her Obelisk Blue uniform and her eyes turned emotionless after Sartorius brainwashed her even further. After her defeat by Jusai Yuki, she returned to her Obelisk Blue uniform.
===Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V===
In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Alexis' outfit consists of a sleeveless white jacket that reaches the waist with grey-blue edges and pockets on each side, a sleeveless black tank top, pale blue finger-less gloves with wide cuffs and rectangles cut out over the backs of the hands in addition to white under sections that cover her wrists, a darker blue pleated and less restrictive skirt with a pale blue lining and light blue boots.
==Personality==
Alexis is generally very confident, brave and strong willed, yet she does not follow the crowd nor does she regard herself as better than other people like many of her Obelisk peers, though she does show some respect for them, (like during her duel with Chazz Princeton).
Alexis is known well for her beauty, and many male characters throughout the show demonstrate infatuation with her. Because she is the most beautiful girl in Duel Academia while also a great duelist, she has earned the names "Madonna" and Queen of Obelisk Blue. However, unlike Mai Kujaku, she is kind and not prideful, and does not intentionally use her looks to her advantage, which most likely attracts the male students to her even more. Manjoume, Sho Marufuji, Eita Kyuando, Mitsuru Ayanokouji, and Tsugio Kanda have all gotten in duels and dilemmas for her affections. However, she has stated often that she does not want a boyfriend, and therefore has never gone through with anyone's interest in her.
Ironically, as the series progressed she actually developed a crush on Jaden, whom was one of the few males not to show infatuation with her. Her crush on him progressively became more obvious and stronger though she never had the courage to tell him. She finally wanted to confess her feelings to him at the end of episode 162, but notices how clueless Jaden is to her feelings about him, and therefore instead just says she was glad to have met him.
Alexis has put herself in danger to help her friends many times. She has strong confidence in her Dueling skills, but she does not act vain about it, unlike Manjoume and Aster Phoenix, and sometimes Jaden. Alexis also tends to act more quiet and reserved than Jaden's other friends. She tries to stay alongside Jaden and support him in defeating evil throughout the series, but often finds herself in trouble and needing his rescuing.
During her childhood, she deeply cares for her elder brother Atticus and when he was missing in Hell, she placed a flower to the old Blue Dorm. Despite of it, she gotten so annoyed when he embarrasses her especially his card "Swing of Memories" and took photos of her when she dressed as "Harpie Lady" during the Duel Monsters' Festival.
After Alexis lost her duel to Manjoume and was brainwashed into joining the Society of Light, her personality changed dramatically. She became extremely rude, arrogant and insulting towards Jaden and the others, and she uses more sarcastic comments. She also begins to call Jaden "dork" and "loser" and saying he should "get a new line", and calls Sho and Tyranno Kenzan "dweebs". She talks back to her peers more frequently as well. After being brainwashed by Takuma Saiou even more to lose her freewill, she became a cold hearted psychopath and a completely obedient pawn to do Saiou's dirty works to defeat her own friend Judai to win back the satellite key that Saiou's original self entrust him in a duel. This all ended when Judai defeated her and undid her brainwashing as well as returning back to her usual self although she doesn't remember what happened due to her amnesia of being brainwashed by Saiou.
==Relationships==
===Jaden Yuki===
Many fans believe that Alexis has a crush on Jaden, which was first evident at the beginning of the series because of Jaden's dueling skills, she became flustered about him, even challenging him to a duel, much to Junko's dismay. She was willing to follow him wherever he went, even if it lead to a series of unfortunate events, Jaden was still there to help her. She was also there to cheer him on during his duels, and tried cheering him up when things were bad. At times when Jaden put himself in danger, she would always get angered for his reckless actions.
During the Society of Light Arc after she lost to Manjoume to join the Society of Light, she became rude and arrogant toward Jaden by calling him "dork" and "loser" in English dub. After losing her free will when Saiou brainwashed her even further, she challenge Jaden to a duel with her new White Knights deck that Saiou given her to win back the Satellite key that Saiou's original self given to him. After she lost, she returned back to her original self and join Judai and the others to take down Saiou to put an end to his scheme.
During the Dimension World arc onwards, their relationship became more complicated because of Judai's obsession with finding Johan. She wanted to support him and have faith in him although the others began doubting him. As Judai's obsession got worse, she eventually came to agree with the others that all Judai cared about now was Johan, and she and his other friends were insignificant to him. As she was being sacrificed, she sadly said while her negative emotions were being amplified by a spell "I thought we were friends. Guess not. It's sad to know that...".
In Season 4, their relationship has generally grown apart, due to Jaden's new personality. But they were able to turn things around during the Duel Academia's tag duel tournament as Jaden started acting like his old self again.
Alexis' interest in Judai is shown more explicitly in the English version; in the original, Alexis never shows romantic interest towards anyone, which leads to her brother's repeated attempts to get her to notice someone. But in season 1, Alexis was shown staring, smiling at Judai after he mocked Cronos. In episode 161 when she is seen thinking about him, and more strongly indicated in the next episode on two occasions. The first is when she is clearly frustrated with Judai getting along with Rei during the pair duel, and later after she tells him about her decision based on his influence; she just says she was glad she met him, but has a lot of trouble assembling her words, and blushes while she's speaking. But as Jaden leaves, a tear runs down her cheek, implying that she truly does have a crush on Judai.
In the dub, Alexis' affections toward Jaden can be traced as early on as episode 3. Her dormmate, Junko wondered if Alexis was "falling for that Osiris", the "Osiris" being referred to as Judai. In the Japanese version, Alexis merely refers to Jaden as "interesting". Asuka consistently will respond to another female showing interest in Judai. For example, in episode 106 when Rei gave Jaden a flirty wink, she is clearly not pleased this is also present in the original version. Similarly, in dubbed episode 37, Manjoume remarks that Tania might be Jaden's type after all. The notion is furthered when Jaden and Sho duel the Meikyu Brothers. Daichi corrects her by assuming that she meant Judai and Sho, and presumably figures out that Alexis has a crush on Jaden when Alexis tries to change the subject. A similar situation also ensues when Momoe Hamaguchi, Alexis good friend and roommate, exclaims that she would never let an Osiris Red stay on campus. In episode 15, things take a turn when Mitsuru Ayanokouji challenges Judai to a duel with the prize of being Alexis fiancé. Despite Jaden winning the duel, his naiveté allows Alexis to downplay the role to one of friendship in the English version, stating, "...it means friend, at least for now, big guy."; in the Japanese version, Alexis instead calls Jaden an idiot for not knowing the definition of the word "fiancé". Another example of Alexis' affection towards Jaden is in episode 42 after Jaden wins against Black Magician Girl. Everyone else is mad at Jaden for winning and Jaden says "It's not easy being the bad guy." Alexis then replies "Aw, sometimes the girls like the bad guys," but then quickly tries to cover it up. In addition, after Jaden nearly gets killed in his duel with a Duel Monster Spirit in the alternate dimension, Alexis later confronts him personally and is mad at him for unnecessarily putting himself at risk of dying. However, while Alexis is controlled by Saiou she shows a great deal of dislike for Jaden, referring to him as a "dork" and "loser" multiple times.
On the other hand, Jaden shows some slight affection for Alexis in the original Japanese for the first few episodes. For example, in episode 2, Alexis warns them that Manjoume and his friends were all just a bunch of jerks. Jaden asks if Alexis was worried about him because she fell in love with him at first sight, causing her to giggle. In the dub as well, they would occasionally flirt. In episode 3, after she destroys one of his monsters, Alexis asks if he was impressed. Jaden replies cheekily, "Impressed? I think I'm in love." Alexis replies with, "You're sweet too bad I have to crush you."
===Bastion Misawa===
In the manga, Alexis doesn't display any particular romantic feelings for Jaden, but is the object of Bastion Misawa's affections. Throughout the manga, Bastion shows a lot of interest in Alexis, becoming extremely fidgety and often nervous when she is around. He is noted as being shy with Alexis, and lacks the courage to ask her for her cell phone number. Alexis is also possibly more flirtatious in the manga, since Syrus Truesdale is quoted as calling her a "siren." In the anime, she and Bastion are good friends. In Season 1, she called his Water Dragon a "total washout" and said that her Etoile Cyber was strong, even though it wasn't nearly as powerful as Bastion's Water Dragon.
===Atticus Rhodes===
Alexis and Atticus are siblings and in the past they were shown to be very close to each other with Atticus teaching her how to duel and it is all thanks to his teachings Alexis was able to grow strong. Alexis at times is shown to get annoyed by Atticus celebrity thing but as a brother and sister they care for each other. Alexis is shown to be very concern for Atticus and cares for his well-being. Before the events of the anime after he mysteriously disappeared in a old abandon dorm, she desperately tries to find him with the help of Zane and when he was comatose after being saved from Nightshroud influence by Jaden, she stays by his bed side and is desperately worried for him.
===Chazz Princeton===
Alexis finds Chazz vain and isn't willing to date him. In Season 1 Episode 2, she told Jaden that Chazz was a jerk. However, when she defeated him in a duel near the end of Season 1, she walked up to him, smiled and said "still friends?" Chazz however still works his but off to impress her.
== Deck ==
Alexis plays a "Cyber-Girl" deck, the monsters of which are based around dance-related sports. Her signature card is "Cyber Blader", the fusion of "Etoile Cyber" and "Blade Skater". Her initial strategy is to utilize "Cyber Blader" and increase its abilities via cards such as "Fusion Weapon". She is also able to inflict massive damage on her opponent via a combination of "Etoile Cyber" and "Double Pass" while at the same time protecting the former, which she can then use as Fusion Material or a Tribute to summon stronger Monsters. Later in the series, Alexis incorporates the "Cyber Angel" archetype into her deck, adding more emphasis on Ritual Summoning. In order to quickly acquire the necessary cards, she uses cards such as "Cyber Petite Angel" and "Ritual Sanctuary", while also using "Fulfillment of the Contract" and "Ritual Weapon" for support. If all other strategies fail, she resorts to Special Summoning "Cyber Prima" with "Prima Light" as a contingency.
Upon being brainwashed into joining the Society of Light, Alexis continues to use her "Cyber-Girl" deck, though the Spell Card "White Veil" is added to it as a sign of her loyalty to Sartorius. When Sartorius strips her of her free will, he gives her a "White Night" deck to use against Jaden. The deck is themed around ice and the physical feeling of cold, with Alexis' strategy being to prevent Jaden from countering her attacks while slowly draining him of his strength. The most powerful Monster of this deck is "White Night Dragon".
Alexis' Arc-V counterpart also plays a "Cyber-Girl" deck. Due to her emnity towards Duel Academy, she refuses to use Fusion Summoning, instead choosing to emphasise Ritual Summoning. Her deck also includes Fusion anti-support cards, such as "Cyber Angel Vrash" and "Fusion Destruction".
==External links==
* Alexis Rhodes on the Yugioh Wikia
* Alexis Rhodes (ARC-V) on the Yugioh Wikia
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