Mai Valentine is a lone wolf. She is strong and independent, and such is her prowess as a duelist that she made it to the semi and quarter-finals in the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City tournaments, respectively. She also has a low opinion of men and will not hesitate to manipulate them to win duels. Initially, she uses her Aroma Tactics to win those games. But later, once she gets to know Joey, Yugi, and the others, she softens up and forms friendships with them. Her character is portrayed this way in both the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and anime.
And yet, the manga and anime versions of Mai are not completely identical in all aspects. Sometimes it’s the plot, other times it’s a superficial thing like appearance, but the Mai in the text and the Mai on the screen often change in the littlest of ways.
10 Her Names
Perhaps the biggest change between the source and the adaptation is the names of the characters. For example, Joey Wheeler is known as Katsuya Jonouchi in the manga, just like Téa Gardner and Tristan Taylor are actually called Anzu Mazaki and Hiroto Honda, respectively, in the source text. The anglicized names were included for the English dub produced by 4kids.
Out of all the characters, though, Mai’s name has the most fun transformation. From Mai Kujaku, which means “peacock dance” in Japanese, her English name—Mai Valentine—is a play on “my valentine.”
9 Her Outfits
In the manga version of Duelist Kingdom, Mai mostly had the same dress (a corset-like top) on all the time, while wearing a black leather vest and miniskirt in Battle City.
In the anime, she sticks to the same color scheme, choosing to wear a short-sleeved purple coat over a white tube top in Duelist Kingdom, and a sleeveless light purple vest with a white tank top along with white fingerless gloves in Battle City. Her miniskirt is the same in both tournaments—a dark purple number.
8 Strategy In Duelist Kingdom Tournament
In both the manga and the anime, Mai uses her Harpie Lady deck. But the way she uses it is quite different along with the cards she chooses to accompany them. For instance, in the manga, she summons Harpy Lady and uses the Spell Cards to make them all the more powerful. Later, she also multiplies it with Kaleidoscope.
In the anime, she boosts the abilities of her Harpie Lady with the help of Rose Whip and Cyber Shield and then employs the Swarm strategy to duplicate her Harpie Lady card.
7 Presence In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Mai isn’t physically present in either the manga or anime version of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, but she still makes an impact in the lives of some characters. In the anime, it happens when Professor Banner talks about dueling legends such as Yugi and Kaiba to the students, and a Slifer Red interjects with “I like Mai Valentine!” This line is only there in the dub.
In contrast, the manga puts Mai on the same legendary level as the rest of the original cast. This is shown when Jaden Yuki duels with Ryuga, and takes inspiration from Mai along Dark Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey.
6 Relationship With Joey Wheeler
In both the anime and the manga, Mai’s relationship with Joey is that of more than friends. There is a connection between them, which starts off as adversarial but evolves into one of deep friendship and companionship. Considering Mai’s feelings about men, her soft spot for Joey is made all the more apparent.
And though it’s never really made clear whether they are romantically interested in each other, their deep connection is only hinted at in the dub.
5 Watching Yugi Duel
When Mai watches Yugi’s match against Weevil Underwood in the manga, she is both complimentary and dismissive of him. She admires his strategy but also tells him it’s one small win in a match he was fated to lose in the end. In addition, she tells him that Weevil was an exceptional player and that there was a long way to go. Joey and Tristan even agreed with her on that last point.
Meanwhile, the Mai of the anime only comments that there was no way Yugi could defeat Weevil while Yugi’s friends continued to encourage him.
4 Joey & Rex Interchange
Mai, in the anime, loses her duel to Joey when he figures out that her psychic powers are not real. She wants to challenge him again, but fears it would be too soon to face him in a match and decides to accept Rex Raptor’s offer to duel on the condition that he would have to win against Joey first. She thought that if Rex defeated Joey and she defeated Rex then, by default, she would technically be better than Joey as a duelist.
But in the manga, Mai actually goes straight over to Joey for a duel because she wants to take out the “weaker” personalities before dueling Dark Yugi.
3 Star Chips
In the anime, after Yugi returned Mai’s stolen Star Chips which he recovered after defeating PaniK, Mai makes it a point to return the favor. She earns some extra Star Chips and, later when Yugi is despondent after losing to Kaiba, offers those very Star Chips to Yugi. He doesn’t feel good about accepting them without a fair game, so Téa duels her on his behalf and properly wins the Star Chips for him.
In the manga, on the other hand, Mai is reluctant to receive the stolen Star Chips Yugi wins back for her, so Joey takes the Star Chips and tells her he’s using them to enter Pegasus Castle. Only then does Mai take the Star Chips from him.
2 Leaving Duelist Kingdom
At the end of the tournament, in the anime, Mai leaves the island on one of the boats—and just in time, too, since Yugi and his friends are later shown looking at the empty port in dismay. They have absolutely no idea about how they will return to Domino City until Joey suggests for Kaiba to give them a ride on his helicopter.
In the manga, Mai’s isn’t as lucky. She doesn’t make it to the boats in time and is quite annoyed by the fact that she’ll have to find some other way to get out of Duelist Kingdom. It is then that she hears Kaiba’s helicopter above her—which already has Yugi and the others inside—and chases after them as fast as she can. They hear her and send a ladder down for her to reach and hop on board.
1 Duel With Marik
In the manga, Mai falls unconscious during her duel with Dark Marik and goes into such a sleep that if someone were not to defeat Marik, she would never wake up. While she is taken to the infirmary, Yugi uses the time to prepare for his battle with Marik and later defeats him. She wakes up from her deep sleep but acts as if she hasn’t and witnesses Joey weep over her seemingly dead form. In this way, she exposes Joey’s feelings for her and later teases him about it.
In the dubbed anime, there is a slight change in that Mai is sent to the Shadow Realm during her sleep. But in the Japanese version, she is trapped inside the cage of her own mind and tortured in the most horrifying ways.