Exodia the Forbidden One

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Exodia the Forbidden One is a monster in the Yu-Gi-Oh! series of manga and anime, as well as the game based on the series. It is considered to be the most powerful monster in existence (more that Horakti of light, Zork Necrophidius and big Leviathan).

Rumored to be the guardian of the nameless Pharaoh's tomb, Exodia is an almighty god-like monster that was sealed by powerful magic. The 5 pieces of Exodia are: Exodia the Forbidden one, Left Leg of the Forbidden one, Right Leg of the Forbidden one, Left Arm of the Forbidden one, and Right Arm of the Forbidden one.

Exodia is considered to be one of the most "divine" of all the monsters, on par with Zork, Egyptian God Cards and Sacred Beasts. Exodia is featured in virtually every Yu-Gi-Oh! medium as five separate monsters, which, when they are all held in hand (or in the case of Dungeon Dice Monsters, played onto the field), would grant the player automatic victory. Because of this, the real-world game limits the parts of Exodia to one per deck.

Exodia represent two poles in the universe: the creation and the final of everything.

[edit] Story

Exodia first appeared in the Death-T story arc (which was featured in full in the manga and slightly altered in the Toei series, and only in part in Duel Monsters), as a result of Seto Kaiba stealing the fourth and last copy of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon from its original owner, Sugoroku Mutou. His grandson, Yugi Mutou, would take his grandfather's deck, and challenge Kaiba to a duel (in the manga and Toei series, they first had to go through the other challenges in Death-T, a point that was barely skimmed upon in Duel Monsters).

During the duel, however, Yugi finds himself easily outmatched by Kaiba's three Blue-Eyes White Dragons - the reason for finding the fourth, as it turns out, was so that he could destroy it, and not allow anyone else to use it against him. Still, Yugi fends off attack after attack, while collecting mysterious monster parts that he occasionally drew. When the five pieces were in his hand, however, he becomes the first duelist to ever summon Exodia, which destroys the three Blue-Eyes White Dragons and wins the duel. As a result, the bad part of Kaiba's soul is destroyed, causing Kaiba to go into a coma.

Soon afterwards, as Yugi heads off towards the Duelist Kingdom tournament, he meets Insector Haga (also known as 'Weevil Underwood' in the English anime), who asks him to show the five parts of Exodia. Haga would promptly take the five cards and toss them overboard, ensuring that Exodia would not be used against him. Although Yugi's friend Katsuya Jonouchi would try to retrieve the cards, he would ultimately fail, as the cards were separated by the waves.

Exodia would not be seen until the Battle City story arc, where, prior to the start of the tournament, when a Rare Hunter working for Marik Ishtar's GHOULS organization would use it to defeat Jonouchi take his rarest card, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. When the tournament begins, Yugi would challenge the Rare Hunter to retake Jonouchi's card.

The Rare Hunter had three of each Exodia part in his deck, but despite this, could not draw all five cards while protecting his own life points. The Rare Hunter would ultimately be finished off when he plays a spare Exodia head, allowing Yugi to use Chain Destruction to remove the other two heads from play, preventing the Rare Hunter from assembling all of the pieces. After the duel, Yugi discovers that the Rare Hunter's cards were, in fact, forgeries (in the English adaptation, the cards were legitimate, but were marked. In any case, Yugi tore them up, sealing Exodia forever). Although Yugi regains the Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Jonouchi declines the card, saying that he had to earn it back in the spirit of the True Duelist.

Exodia would also make another appearance in the Virtual World arc, when Gozaburo Kaiba would challenge his son Seto to a duel. On the first turn, Gozaburo would use Painful Choice, forcing Kaiba to discard four of the five Exodia pieces. When the fifth was set and destroyed, Gozaburo would then use Contract with Exodia to revive the five pieces and summon Exodia Necross, a second form of Exodia. As long as each part of Exodia remained in the card graveyard, Exodia Necross would ultimately be immune to virtually every card in the game, getting more and more powerful the more it attacked. It has one weakness, though, and that is that it needs the five Exodia pieces in the Graveyard for it to work. Seto realizes this, and uses Soul Demolition to remove the Exodia cards from play - weakening Exodia Necross, allowing Seto's trusted Blue-Eyes White Dragon to destroy it and winning the duel for him.

In the Lost Memories arc, Exodia was summoned during the battle with Zork the Dark One. In here, Shimon (Yugi's grandpa in the past), using his Millennium key summons Exodia to fight with Zork. According to the chapter, Exodia can take down a thousand armies overnight. In the episode, Shimon stated that, Exodia's power was so immense that he sealed Exodia from the rest of the monsters and humans. He sealed Exodia in 5 sacred stones, never to be revived again. He revived Exodia using every bit of his strength to fight against Zork. Though Zork and Exodia seemed to be nearly on par, Exodia was drawing its power from Shimon, while Zork was drawing his strength from the very darkness he was provoking. Therefore, Exodia was beaten in the episode, and Shimon crippled.

Exxod The Master of the Guard from Invincible Fortress Structure Deck, is supposed to be the newest incarnation of Exodia. However, despite Exxod and Exodia bearing a close resemblance, there are no other similarities between them.

English versions of the Exodia card feature Spellbinding Circle in the background. The Japanese cards feature the 5 points of a pentagram.

[edit] Playability

Exodia has never really been a top choice for players, due to the fact that the pieces limit the player to only wanting to use a smaller amount of their in hand cards. And having the pieces discarded became a nightmare. Although relief was provided for this with the banning of cards such as Delinquent Duo and the release of Pot of Avarice.

The deck generally featured cards to provide deck thinning and search out the pieces such as Witch of the Black Forest and Sangan. But due to the difficulty to draw the five pieces separately some decks have been designed to search out all five pieces at once.

[edit] Cards

As Exodia is one of the key monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh!, cards have been made around Exodia. Among them are the following (Exodd, Master of the Guard excluded):

Name	Monster Type	Attribute	Type	Level	Attack	Defense	Effect
Exodia the Forbidden One	Effect	Dark	Spellcaster	3	1000	1000	When you have "Right Leg of the Forbidden One", "Left Leg of the Forbidden One", "Right Arm of the Forbidden One" and "Left Arm of the Forbidden One" in addition to this card in your hand, you win the Duel.
Left Arm of the Forbidden One	Normal	Dark	Spellcaster	1	200	300
Left Leg of the Forbidden One	Normal	Dark	Spellcaster	1	200	300
Right Arm of the Forbidden One	Normal	Dark	Spellcaster	1	200	300
Right Leg of the Forbidden One	Normal	Dark	Spellcaster	1	200	300
Exodia Necross	Effect	Dark	Spellcaster	4	1800	0	This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by the effect of “Contract with Exodia”. This card is not destroyed as a result of battle at any time or by the effects of Spell, Trap or Monster Cards, and during each of your Standby Phases, increase the ATK of this card by 500 points. This card is destroyed when any of “Exodia the Forbidden One”, “Right Arm of the Forbidden One”, “Left Arm of the Forbidden One”, “Right Leg of the Forbidden One”, “Left Leg of the Forbidden One” is not in your Graveyard. In the anime, as long as the Left Leg of the Forbidden One is in the graveyard, the monster cannot be destroyed by magic cards, and similarly with the Right Leg for traps, Left Arm for monster effects, and the head for monster attacks, and as long as the Right Arm is in the graveyard, the monster gains 1000 points after attacking. (If the Right Arm is taken out of the graveyard, the attack is reduced back to 1800.)

Name	Type	Subtype	Effect
Contract With Exodia	Spell	Normal	Summons Exodia Necross - You can only activate this card when you have “Exodia the Forbidden One”, “Right Arm of the Forbidden One”, “Left Arm of the Forbidden One”, “Right Leg of the Forbidden One”, and “Left Leg of the Forbidden One” in your Graveyard. Special Summon 1 “Exodia Necross” from your hand. In the anime, it cost 2000 life points to activate this card.