I'm wondering, why do you like Joey/Mai and Yugi/Yami as pairings? What about prideshipping (Yami/Kaiba)?
Favourite YGO DM girl aside from Mai? Why do you enjoy her as a character so much? Also, why do you like Mai as a character?
I’ll go ahead and reply to both of your question posts here, mostly because I think I can answer both with one post.
When I first watched the show, Mai was the only female character I really liked (DMG/Mana, Shizuka, and Ishizu were okay, I guess, but nothing that great to me). She was definitely there for the fanservice, but what I liked about her was that despite how overtly sexy she was, she was always her own agent. Even despite her inner fears (which popped up in the narrative a lot), she still came across as a strong person. She had attitude, confidence, and a definitive personality that could clash and meld with the other characters. She had the most screen presense, in my opinion, of Yu-Gi-Oh’s female characters, and she was not introduced to the show just as emotional support or as a love interest like Shizuka and Anzu were.
What I liked about her and Jounouchi’s relationship was that despite their differences in age, background, and most notably personality, they have an interesting similarity in how they project themselves to the world. They both are the types to put forward a strong, proud face and hide their insecurities – even Jounouchi never tells Yugi and Anzu about his father or talks about his parents’ divorce that much. The difference is what they are hiding – in Mai’s case, she is hiding a very lonely person who longs for companionship and friendship, whereas Jounouchi is hiding a goofball who just loves to have fun and live life to the fullest. And underneath, it seems that those two contrasting personalities could satisfy each other nicely – Jounouchi can offer Mai the companionship she craves, and Mai can offer Jounouchi the company and excitement that he craves. And because their personalities are different, it would keep the relationship fresh and new.
As for Yugi/Yami, I admit that my love for their relationship is pretty wide – I like it romantic, as well as not. Again, I like how even if they contrast one another in so many ways – Yugi is modest, Yami is confident, Yugi is shy, Yami is bold, Yugi is forgiving, Yami is vengeful, and so forth – they have this shared drive to do good, even if they go about it in different ways. And them sharing thoughts and experiences as closely as they did, as well as coming to blows while doing so, is how they created such a close trust and bond. Few people can claim that in their own romantic relationships. And even when they do come to blows, they never abuse or try to destroy the other one, like other two-personality people like Malik or Bakura, because it’s clear that they do feel for one another very deeply and feel more complete in the other’s company.
I never really warmed up to Yami/Kaiba. I think it might be because I feel like Yami/Kaiba might butt heads too much. I can’t see either of them ever submitting to the other, and it just being a big ball of uncontrollable hormones rather than a relationship of push and pull. Yugi and Kaiba or Jounouchi and Kaiba, on the other hand, I could see more easily.
