Anzu Mazaki - Character

Character

Anzu, who is in class 1-B at Domino High School, is the childhood friend of Yugi Mutou (romanized as Yugi Moto in the English anime). She becomes a good friend to Katsuya Jonouchi (known as Joey Wheeler in the English anime) and Hiroto Honda (Tristan Taylor), though she is not fond of them at first. In the first series anime, Miho Nosaka is also one of Anzu's friends. Anzu does not usually play games with Yugi and his friends, though she is once shown beating Jonouchi.

Anzu has a spunky, tomboyish personality, and in the first chapter of the manga, intimidates Honda and Jonouchi into leaving the room after they bully Yugi. Anzu possesses a very kind-hearted, strong-willed, and supportive personality. In the Duel Monsters anime, she and Honda are basically cheerleaders for Yugi and Jonouchi whenever they duel, but she has proven herself adept at dueling as well, and usually keeps up with the going-ons of a duel. She has a stronger sense of faith and friendship than her group of friends, often serving as the mother/sister figure for the boys. She is known among fans of the Duel Monsters English anime for her "friendship speeches".

Anzu is athletic and holds jobs to save money in order to attend a dance school in New York. In the beginning of the series, she is revealed to be working at "Burger World" (in the English Duel Monsters anime, "Burgerpalooza"). By Volume 4 in the manga, Anzu is fired from that job for punching a customer who had pinched her buttocks. She one time was also captured by and filmed by a pervert, she was saved by Yugi. She gets a job at KaibaCorp afterwards and encounters her friends at KaibaLand. In the Toei anime, Anzu, Honda, and Miho work at Burger World, with Miho and Honda working to support Anzu. Once Burger World closes, Honda and Miho work for a beef bowl restaurant. In the opening scenes of the 1999 film Yugi and his friends discover that she works at "Duel Monsters Center," (デュエル モンスター センター), a Duel Monsters parlor. She already knows Shōgo Aoyama, a regular of the parlor and Yugi's neighbor.

In the original Japanese versions of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Anzu's speech is not wholly polite. Anzu omits honorific suffixes when talking to many people, including Jonouchi and Honda. In Toei's anime, she uses the "kun" suffix when referring to Honda and Jonouchi.

During Duelist Kingdom, and later Battle City Tournaments, Anzu has several close encounters with the Shadow Games herself, including being turned into one of her favourite card monsters, the Magician of Faith (when she and her friends became pawns of Dark Bakura as he and Dark Yugi dueled against each other in a Duel Monster Shadow Game), and having her mind possessed by Marik, in his quest, or more precisely, plot of revenge against the Nameless Pharaoh (a.k.a. Dark Yugi).

As part of Virtual World Arc Anzu dueled one of the Big 5 and had a dream she was the Dark Magician Girl and later used her as her deck master.

In most cases, Anzu's friends rescue her whenever danger exists. Anzu, in some scenarios, manages to rescue herself from the perils of the series if it means protecting her friends. Her strongest example of this comes in the Japanese version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie, Pyramid of Light. When Anzu's soul is taken into the Millennium Puzzle by Anubis, she manages to resist him temporarily and breaks into the Pyramid of Light to try to convince Yugi and Kaiba to stop their duel.

While responding to a fan mail asking him why Yugi and Anzu are not in a romantic relationship, Takahashi stated that the relationship between Anzu and Yugi is "pretty much a love triangle." He added that Yugi and Anzu "always" act in a "very careful" manner in front of one another, so they cannot admit their feelings for one another.