Ghouls (Yu-Gi-Oh!)
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The Ghouls (Rare Hunters in the English anime, and Jackals in some video games) are a group of card thieves and duelists in the manga series Yu-Gi-Oh! and the second series Yu-Gi-Oh! anime (Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters in East Asia).
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[edit] History
The Ghouls were formed by Marik Ishtar to collect the Egyptian God Cards and other cards of value, becoming a group with money and power to grant Marik power. It is not specified exactly when they are formed, but they are known to be Marik's henchmen and assist him in his goals. Rishid Ishtar (Odion Ishtar in the English anime) is the second in command of the Ghouls.
The first Ghoul to appear (although not addressed as one) is Keith Howard (nicknamed Bandit Keith), who steals the Millennium Puzzle from Yugi. Yugi wins the Puzzle back, but not before meeting Marik through his mind control of Keith, who warns Yugi he will return. Afterwards, Keith accidentally sets the arena on fire before fleeing. In this duel the methods of the Ghouls is also set: nearly all of the Ghouls cheat in their duels.
When Seto Kaiba organizes the Battle City Tournament, Marik orders his minions to go to the tournament and defeat the duelists there, hoping to seize many rare cards that the world's best duelists would surely have. However, upon discovering his sister Ishizu has given the final God card Marik needs to Kaiba, Marik travels to Battle City himself to take the card. As it were, Yugi Mutou is also in the tournament, giving Marik the perfect opportunity to take both the Millennium Puzzle and the final God card.
As he travels to Domino, Marik has several other Ghouls attempt to defeat Yugi, but they fail. Marik is desperate enough to have one of them use a God card, Slifer the Sky Dragon. When Yugi prevails again and takes Slifer, Marik attempts to have two Ghouls defeat him and Kaiba in a tag-team duel. This too fails, and as Kaiba and Yugi now have enough locator cards to enter the finals, Marik decides there is nothing else to do but face the two himself, and so he and Rishid enter the finals.
After this, the fate of the Ghouls is not known, although the video game Yu-Gi-Oh!: Reshef of Destruction, which is an alternate-universe game set in the aftermath of Battle City, portrays them as still seeking the God cards with Bandit Keith as their new leader. Also, in the second series anime, the "lost souls" of Arkana and Seeker are seen in the Waking the Dragons arc when the pharoah goes to see Yugi.
[edit] Members
Some of the Ghouls are voluntary, while others have the Eye of Anubis on their foreheads when seen, implying they are being controlled by Marik and thus are slaves. Beyond the listed members are several unnamed members who operate machinery for Marik and otherwise trail targeted duelists. Most of them are mentally punished (In the English anime, they are banished to the Shadow Realm) by Marik after failing to defeat Yugi.
- Marik Ishtar: The leader of the organization and the driving force behind them. He abandons the group after Battle City (it is not addressed if he actually disbands the group or just leaves, as the Ghouls are not seen in the anime afterwards one way or the other)
- Keith Howard: Although never addressed as a Ghoul, Keith wears the same robes when he duels Yugi and is controlled by Marik mentally as several of the Ghouls are.
- Card Shop Owner: Not named, he owns the card shop where Duel Disks are sold and registration for Battle City is allowed. He thus is able to inform Marik of when a duelist possessing a rare card registers for the tournament.
[edit] Rishid Ishtar
Rishid Ishtar (Odion Ishtar in the English anime) is Marik's adoptive brother and the second-in-command of the Ghouls. Abandoned as a child, Rishid was taken in by Marik's mother prior to his birth. However, his father never accepted him as a suitable heir and treated him as a servant rather than a son. When Marik was born, his father demanded Rishid take care of him. While Marik was marked with the Tombkeeper's Initiation and had his back tattooed, Rishid tattooed his own face that same night to show his loyalty to him. When Marik began to rebel against his family's traditions, Rishid, believing Marik's evil would grow without his family, stayed by his side. He enters the Battle City finals posing as Marik, but falls into a coma after using a false God Card, and Katsuya Jonouchi(Joey Wheeler) wins by default. He later regains consciousness during the duel between Marik's evil side and Yugi, and with his urgings, Marik's good side is able to fight his evil side and survive until the end of the duel.
Rishid plays a Trap deck composed largely of Spell and Trap cards, opting to battle using powerful card effects than monsters. Rishid uses Embodiment of Apophis as his primary offense due to their ability to be called at any time, but his strongest monster, Mystical Beast Serket, can be summoned only be combining three Spell cards.
[edit] Seeker
Although not called by name in the anime, his name is given as Seeker in the video game Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories (in both the English and Japanese versions of the anime he is simply called The Rare Hunter). Seeker uses an Exodia deck meant to summon the forbidden giant for an instant win. Seeker duels Jonouchi and seizes his Red-Eyes Black Dragon when he wins, also having two unnamed Ghouls beat Jonouchi up. Yugi defeats Seeker and wins back the card for Jonouchi, but afterwards discovers that he was cheating by using an x-ray contact lens to spot invisible ink on his cards (in the Japanese version, his Exodia cards were fakes). As well, although not stated in either version, in the real-life TCG, having more than one copy of each Exodia piece in one's deck is illegal, and Seeker uses three of each. Furthermore, he never officially registered for the tournament and instead hacked into Kaiba Corporation's computers and entered himself.
[edit] Pandora
Pandora (Arcana in the English anime) is a disgraced magician and escape artist. During a typical escape trick he was caught in an explosion and horribly disfigured, and now wears a mask to hide his face. Disgusted with his appearance, he shunned his fiancee and assistant Catherine who fled. After recovering and hating himself for driving her away, he is approached by Marik, who offers him a chance to win Catherine back by defeating Yugi. Pandora lures Yugi into an underground duel arena. Both players are cuffed to the floor. Spinning buzzsaws are in place; if a player loses all their life points, the buzzsaws will cut off their legs (in the English anime, these are instead dark energy disks that banish the loser to the Shadow Realm). Pandora loses, but Yugi rescues him from the buzzsaws. Afterwards he runs to what he thinks is his waiting fiancee, but is merely a dummy: he is then mentally attacked by Marik.
Pandora plays a Dark Magician deck, claiming Yugi is not worthy of his copy of the card, but it is Pandora's own disrespect for his Dark Magicians that leads to his defeat by Yugi's Dark Magician Girl. Pandora has trimmed the edges of his Dark Magician cards so that when his deck is shuffled and cut, they fall on the top of his deck.
[edit] The Pantomimer
The Pantomimer (Strings in the English anime, also called The Quiet One) is a street mime under Marik's mind control. This example of mind control is seemingly different from others. In Volume 13 of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist manga, it is explained that the Pantomimer went mad after murdering his parents. In his grief he locked away his consciousness and became a hollow shell. As a result of this he seems to exist as a second body for Marik, allowing more complete possession than with the other Ghouls.
After Yugi defeats Pandora, Marik takes control of the Pantomimer and sends him to duel Yugi. The Pantomimer uses a deck based around Slifer the Sky Dragon and giving it near-infinite power by drawing cards through a complex combo that lets him draw every time Yugi attacks. Yugi turns this combo against him however, causing him to draw so many cards he literally runs out and by default, loses the match. Afterwards Marik destroys the Pantomimer's mind (in the English anime he banishes Strings to the Shadow Realm). He is the only Ghoul besides Marik and Rishid not to cheat in his duel.
[edit] Mask of Darkness and Mask of Light
Mask of Darkness and Mask of Light (Umbra and Lumis in the English anime) are tag-team duelists who target Yugi and Kaiba. They duel atop a skyscraper on planes of glass that shatter when a duelist's Life Points hit 0, dropping them to their death (in the English anime, they fall into the Shadow Realm). They use a Mask deck that also has some Chaos undertones, dealing with the forces of Darkness and Light. They wear masks in their duel, and have hidden microphones in them to share their strategies secretly (which is not technically cheating, but is still an unfair advantage). Also, Mask of Darkness (and presumably Mask of Light) has a parachute hidden in his robe to save himself even if he loses. After Mask of Darkness plummets, Mask of Light is possessed by Marik.
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