Yubel

Yubel is the primary antagonist of the Dimension World arc of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime. A malevolent Duel Monster whose card was in Jaden Yuki's possession when he was a child, Yubel was previously obsessed with her love for Jaden. She is later redeemed after Jaden fuses with Yubel, reuniting them forever. Since then, she has acted as Jaden's partner, similar to Yugi's relationship with Yami Yugi and other Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists.

[Appearance

Yubel's appearance can easily be described as demonic. The most noticeable features are the sickly-pink skin, large black wings, heterochromatic eyes, which look similar to Dartz's while under the control of the Orichalcos and a third vertically placed eye. Her clothing is bizarre; one of the legs is completely covered, while the other is mostly exposed. Yubel's hair is somewhat reminiscent of Yami Marik and Yami Bakura, each contributing to one half. She also has blue lips and pointed teeth resembling those of Camula. Her entire appearance can easily be described as made up of opposites.

One side is distinctly female, with a covered breast and a rounded hip. The other looks more masculine with a pectoral muscle, no breast, and a harder, less rounded hip. In addition, the "masculine" side is paired with Yubel's original hair and eye color in the past life.

Her Duel Disk is an extension of her arm that grows out when she Duels. Her appearance symbolizes her duality, although the English dub overlooks this. Unlike the card's art, there is no additional gray clothing over the torso. In the dub, her top half is covered in black to look less revealing and more female, and in later episodes, her chest is redrawn to have two breasts instead of one, but aside from that, she looks exactly like she did in the original.

As a human, Yubel had an androgynous appearance, had light blue hair with turquoise eyes and tanned skin, and was said to be beautiful.]

[Personality

During her previous life as a human, Yubel seemed to be a largely stoic yet brave and noble individual, who possessed powerful romantic feelings for her childhood friend. Her feelings for him being so strong that she willing sacrificed her humanity in order to be his guardian without any regret (which was implied to excruciatingly painful), and vowed to always to protect him no matter the cost.

By the time of the modern era, however, following her transformation into a duel monster spirit, Yubel had become much more emotional and even sadistic. In addition, she also retained her profound love for the Supreme King, which was extended towards his reincarnation, Jaden Yuki. Her feelings for Jaden though had become much more possessive and overbearing by this point, as she was fiercely overprotective of him and sought to undermine anything she considered a danger to him or their bond. This included cursing Jaden’s dueling opponents whenever she felt they were “insulting” or “hurting” him by making him sad or even cry, whether it was intentional or not, as was the case with Osamu (this was expanded in the Dub, where she cursed Osamu for mocking Jaden’s talk about Yubel’s spirit calling out to him). In addition to her vindictiveness, she seemed to have possessed a sort of “know-what’s-best” attitude toward Jaden as well, being unconcerned with the loneliness she caused him to suffer through when everyone else began alienating him because she was hurting his friends, believing that he needed no other friend but her. She also fervently desired to be summoned whenever Jaden was dueling, with her spirit calling out to Jaden to do so during every duel so that she fight by his side.

After being sent into space, these dark traits were amplified when Yubel was exposed to the Light of Destruction, causing her to go insane. In the Japanese version, Yubel is not only evil and deranged but also quite psychopathic. She knows how to manipulate others to do what she wants by playing on their innermost feelings and hidden desires. Staying true to her villainous nature, she doesn't bind herself by her word: although she made a pact with Viper to bring back his son, Pierce, Yubel instead merely changed his memories so that he thought his son had never died. Yubel also throws away allies that she deems as useless as seen with Viper and Marcel also brutally hurting traitors to her as seen with Adrian Gecko.

In addition to the above, she is also quite emotionally sadistic, often enjoying picking at the insecurities of others for the above reasons or her own enjoyment and crushing/trivializing their hopes and ideals after she attempts to bond with her opponents.

Despite how much she mocks her opponents, she is actually capable of sincerely respecting them, though it's overshadowed by how much she enjoys their suffering. This is missing from the dub; she no longer cares how much suffering her opponent endures and does not respect them (in Zane's case, on several occasions she mocked his heart condition).

Yubel's ambition was to have Jaden all to herself and is willing to harm anyone that gets between her and Jaden. In fact, all of her plans revolve around getting Jaden, Even taking control of the Duel Spirit dimensions was only something that she wanted so she could have a world with Jaden. Despite her outspoken love for Jaden, Yubel has no qualms about hurting him to accomplish her goals or bend him to her will. Initially, Yubel made comments that Jaden "belongs" to her (essentially claiming him like he is her property), although she stopped making them after her reappearance. Yubel also doesn't care how dangerous the situations she manipulates Jaden into are (possibility of him dying during the Survival Duels, his journey into the second alternate dimension, etc.), because she always assumes (albeit correctly) that Jaden will survive. Yubel has further been shown to have an enormously warped and sadomasochistic view of love: because love, in part, is sharing feelings, both joy, and suffering, Yubel, therefore, legitimizes Jaden's suffering as "true love". Yubel feels she has suffered greatly due to her time in space and the crash into the Earth that caused her to lose most of her body and desires to share that suffering with Jaden. To that end, she goes out of her way to make him suffer the same fate.

To that end, she also openly welcomes Jaden's insults and defiance, seeing the pain she suffers as Jaden expressing his "love". She also claims that life isn't worth living without that person that one loves the most, actually shedding a tear at the thought. However, she appears unable to understand any other form of love and dismisses any relationships in which joy and suffering are not mutual as immaterial. The reason Yubel acquired her twisted concept of love was that during her time in space, she at first felt that Jaden had discarded her, but later came to believe his decision to make her suffer by sending her into space was done out love, likely due to coming into contact with The Light of Destruction. In the dub, she instead sees this as betrayal. She is quoted as saying to Jaden, "I was your friend. Your guardian. Your avenger. And how did you repay me? By letting them get their hands on me. You let them send me away. But destiny had a different plan, and it brought me back to you." Also of note is that in the dub, she did eventually realize that Jaden had put her through such pain to make her more powerful, and wanted to do the same to Jaden, but still resented how he had done it.

In episode 154, it is revealed that Yubel was paranoid toward those she believed would stand in the way of her love, including the "Neo-Spacians", along with Jaden's friends (in particular, Jesse Anderson, which was part of her reasoning for possessing him), in her inconsiderable belief that they have "taken my place" and have "stolen Jaden from me". Yubel also believes that the supposed "deaths" of most of Jaden's friends and manipulating his "Neo-Spacians" in harming Jaden with Yubel's effect, then destroying them mercilessly, is her way of payback, claiming that "My love for you is greater than theirs". Ironically enough, what Yubel does to those she feels animosity towards is far less harmful then how she torments Jaden. In the Japanese version, she explicitly says that she believes that the love that Jaden's past life gave her now belongs to Jesse.

In the dub, Yubel's personality underwent some major changes. All references to Yubel's "love" for Jaden were omitted and replaced by her childish desire to "play" with him. She also states that she wants Jaden to pay for "discarding her". This would indicate that her goal is to punish Jaden for her being banished into space, although this animosity isn't seen in the original version. However, she seems still to have some possessive feelings towards him, and may still try to reclaim him as her own. It's unclear, however, especially in earlier episodes Yubel showed her possessive feelings towards Jaden, but starting during his Duel with Viper, she then switched to show hate for him. Also, Yubel acted extremely childish at first, after Jaden's Duel with Viper, she started acting for more fiendish, and intelligent. Yubel also takes Jaden more lightly than in the original (when he went to Duel when she was possessing Marcel, she was surprised he made it, while in the original she expected him to make it). All masculine aspects of her appearance were edited out as well, and both in the past life and the present life, she was given an excessively feminine voice as opposed to her voice in the original. The simplification of her motives may be due to the disturbing possible implications of Yubel's associating physical and emotional pain with love, often interpreted understandably as sadomasochism. Yubel hasn't shown to be as sadistic as she was in the Japanese version and only seems to enjoy tormenting Jaden. In the English Dub version, she also uses the term "destiny" several times, suggesting the Light has had a similar effect on her it as it did on Sartorius, at least in terms of influencing the belief that all is predetermined (in the original version, she never displayed any signs of this and was merely shown to be insane).

Towards the end of the series, Yubel's spirit appears on various occasions, and it's noticeable that her personality has changed once all hatred towards Jaden and all influence from the Light of Destruction is gone, taking a more supportive role by lending her power to him. Particularly seen when Jaden is Dueling against Nightshroud, as Yubel's spirit appears to support him. Though at first she objects and sorts of mocks Jaden for how the Duel has commenced, as well as that comment made by him stating that he was alone, Yubel counters that idea made by Nightshroud, telling Jaden that isn't true as her spirit is always with him (being that their souls are fused together). She again boosts up his confidence when Nightshroud destroys "Neos Wiseman", thus telling him to remove her card from the game to bring back "Neos". As Jaden hesitate on doing this, Yubel tells him that though he will now have to fight alone, she convinces him to believe in his own power, and she also tells him that she's confident that he will defeat Nightshroud.

The reason behind her sudden change in personality can likely be linked to Jaden holding the power of The Gentle Darkness. In the movie Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time, Paradox referred to Jaden as a "Duelist with the ability to control the spirits".[1] Thus, whether or not Jaden realized it, his power might have been able to calm Yubel's soul.

She is also present for Jaden's Duel with Yugi Muto. Yubel tells Jaden that she is impressed and that she recognizes Yugi as being the True King of Duelists, as Yugi is able to sense her spirit. With the Duel advancing with him struggling as he's facing a formidable opponent, Yubel makes Jaden notice his shaking hand asking then if he is scared. As he questions this too, Yubel quickly denies this, telling him that she knows of his true feelings and emotions at the time.]

[Voice/Mannerisms

In the Japanese version, Yubel has two different voices that alternate evenly, though Yubel tends to use the female voice when speaking to or about Jaden. Occasionally she uses both voices, usually when its switching from one voice to another. She's been referred to as both a "he" and a "she" in the Japanese version, although she usually identifies herself with male pronouns such as "boku".

In the dub, Yubel has only a single (androgynous though somewhat identifiably female) voice prior to fully revealing herself. Additionally, Yubel's English voice is given childish mannerisms and electronic effects that reflect her own childish nature: Yubel's initial behavior in the version is that of a spoiled brat determined to get her own way and remove those who oppose her. However, later on, she behaves in a more adult manner, especially after shedding Marcel. When possessing others (in both versions), her victim's voice isn't changed (although her host's voice sounds more serious), though she sometimes uses one of her own voices in the Japanese version, while the English version she randomly uses an altered version of her host's voice. (Marcel lost his French accent, and Jesse's Southern accent was weakened, and sometimes they used the same vocal effect as Yubel). She still uses her own voice when possessing others, but she does it far less than in the Japanese version (whenever she speaks using her own voice in the English version, her host body glows purple.). It's also worth noting that in the English version, Yubel often talks in scenes where she says nothing in the Japanese version.]

[Abilities

From within her card, Yubel can cause harm to others in a manner similar to the card's effect.

In spirit form, Yubel holds great supernatural abilities throughout her appearances. Viper has said in the Japanese version that "it has the power to create miracles". She can possess anyone with inner darkness in their heart and manifest herself through a being made out of energy. Yubel is able to turn card effects real as seen with the snakes that stopped Jaden's friends during his Duel with Viper. After absorbing massive amounts of Duel energy, she is able to focus this power to a much greater extent, like summoning Duel spirits as real monsters to serve her or using the "Polymerization" card to create powerful duelists with a fusion of humans and spirits.

She also can also form bonds with others to share her powers with them, shown by their left arm having scales on them and displayed with Viper and Adrian, bestowing powers less potent than hers. She can also infect and control others, as shown with the "Duel Ghouls". Lastly, she has the ability to read the minds of others and by extent, the darkness of a person's heart, to manipulate people to do her bidding by exploiting their hidden desires, which is a necessity as Yubel's strength comes mainly from the darkness of others. Yubel can also teleport herself and others on a large scale, as she sent the whole Duel Academy to an alternate dimension.

As for her lesser-known abilities, she can also use telekinesis to immobilize a person, as she did to Adrian in Viper's base. She can also alter minds and memories. Yubel also has a degree of super-strength when she threw Marcel at Blair, using only one arm.

Her raw power is immense, as she was capable of opening the passage to the Sacred Beasts and subduing all three by herself, and even after being weakened in a duel against Zane, she had enough strength to fight and push back Adrian's Exodia powers while inhabiting Jesse's body, giving him no choice but to duel her.

After Yubel has her soul fused with Jaden, he also obtains access to her abilities. However, because Yubel implied most of it came from The Light of Destruction, which was purged from her when she fused with Jaden, he may not possess the same power level as before.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time, even though being still fused with Jaden, she is seen using her powers separately from him. She projected an energy blast in order to scare away people gathered at Domino City Plaza.]