#like specifically when he lookd like a human again

[helloitshaley]

I need a boyfriend bc why am I thirsting over Doug Jones as the Barron

[sage-nebula]

i have always imagined jou's pokemon team to include a shiny charizard becase red eyes, so this makes me extremely happy. why does he call her akane and who else have you imagined for his team? i'm so curious

We had the exact same thought! A long, long time ago when I developed a team for Jounouchi my first thought was to give him a shiny charizard because of Red-Eyes. It’s so perfect, there’s no way I couldn’t. ♥ Anyway, I chose the nickname “Akane” for her because Jounouchi is Japanese and “aka” means “red,” but I’ve now realized that I was being a foolish fool and missed the most obvious—he should call her “Akame,” rather than “Akane.” While “Akane” is a more normal name, “Akame” is a more direct translation of Red-Eyes, given that it can be written with the following kanji:

赤 = Aka = “Red”

目 = Me =  “Eye, class, look, insight, experience, care, favor”

These two kanji together literally form “red-eyes” (meant to mean “bloodshot eyes” but whatever), so it’s perfect, especially since it sounds close enough to “Akane” to work. It’s a play on the name and a play on words and it’s the perfect nickname for his shiny charizard (who didn’t originally have red eyes as a shiny charmander, but whatever).

Anyway, I always imagined Jounouchi’s full team to be something like:

(Shiny) Charizard — Akame: As discussed, he has a female shiny charizard named Akame. She was his starter, and was actually passed over by other kids because her yellowish scales looked “sickly” compared to other charmander who were “normal” colored, and so no one wanted her. (Because after all, in-universe shinies don’t seem to be prized; it’s just in the real world that game players care about them.) Jounouchi, used to being passed over and thought of as undesirable, felt a strong draw to her, and so he chose her without a second thought. She’s been his most loyal partner ever since. (I imagine she could also mega evolve into Mega Charizard Y, to keep the black scales and red eyes even after mega evolution.) 

Aegislash — Masamune: Jounouchi has numerous cards that are associated with swords: Shield and Sword (which aegislash is a perfect representation of), Flame Swordsman, Swordsman of Landstar, and so on. And when he played Bakura’s TRPG Monster World, his character was a warrior who wielded a sword in hand. I feel that, given that Jounouchi is associated with swords numerous times throughout the series, a pokémon like aegislash is really fitting for him, particularly since aegislash’s form changing throughout the battle makes it an unpredictable opponent, and this rather fits Jounouchi’s battle style since he tends to adapt and battle on the fly. Finally, the name Masamune comes from Gorou Nyuudou Masamune, one of (if not the) most famous swordsmiths in Japanese history.

Scrafty — Gaki: Scrafty, I feel, is a good representation for Jounouchi’s early days in Hirutani’s gang, given that scrafty is supposed to be a representation of punks and, well, chinpira (at least in pokémon form, because we all know that Team Skull are the human chinpira of the PokéWorld). Akame was Jounouchi’s starter, but I feel that this scrafty—originally a scraggy—would have been his second or third pokémon. “Gaki” means “brat; twerp; urchin; little devil” in Japanese (and is actually harsher than “jari,” so I feel that kind of says something about how Jessie and James refer to Ash & Co., that they use “jari” instead of “gaki” in Japanese), and I like to imagine that this pokémon started out by routinely trying to steal food and other things from Jounouchi, hence Jounouchi chasing him off while calling him a “punk” or “brat.” Eventually Jounouchi caught him, and tried to name him something nicer, but by that time the then-scraggy wouldn’t respond to anything else and so the name stuck. I imagine we could easily just translate this to “Punk,” and that might be easier for English readers, but in the original Japanese it’d be “Gaki.” (And it’s fitting, anyway, since this little one has a Naughty nature. So just—Jounouchi: [holding Gaki up] “Stinky.”Yuugi: “No! Don’t be mean!”Jounouchi: [swinging Gaki back and forth] “Stinky bastard man.”Yuugi: “No!!”Honda: “Naughty boy. Brat ‘mon.”Yuugi: “NOOOO!!”Jounouchi: [sends a picture of Gaki under a laundry basket with a book on it] “pnshd 4 stealin my riceball wen i lookd away 4 1 sec crimes”Yuugi: “NOOOO BABY BOY”Honda: “I have no sympathy for this prisoner.” 

Whimsicott — Migawari: a.k.a. Scapegoat! Scapegoat is one of my favorites of Jounouch’s cards that he uses, because they’re just so cute, and he tends to use them in pretty clever ways, I feel. Thus, it feels only natural to represent that on his team, particularly since it gives him some more type variety as well. (And I mean, that fairy-typing in particular could make Migawari here his li’l dragon killer.) “Migawari” means “substitute; sacrifice; scapegoat,” so he’s pretty clearly named after the card, here (even if, in this universe, those cards don’t exist).

Golurk — Jinzo: It’s another ghost-type, and again, Jounouchi is not fond of those—but it’s also a gentle giant and Jounouchi probably wouldn’t even realize it’s a ghost-type at first. Jinzo is probably Jounouchi’s most memorable monster after Red-Eyes, and so I feel it needs a representation on his pokémon team. On the extra plus side, “jinzo” is an actual word in Japanese that means “artificial; man-made; synthetic; imitation,” so I don’t even have to get creative with the nickname. Jinzo is Jinzo in every incarnation.

Silvally — Mikata: So I hesitated a lot with this one, because Type: Null and its evolution silvally are really special pokémon, in the sense that you can’t readily catch them in the wild. However, I ultimately decided that silvally was the right choice for a few reasons.First and foremost, Jounouchi gets his hands on quite a few rare cards throughout the duelist arc through strokes of fortune and victory. Although he has just started out, by the time he reaches Pegasus’ castle he has already obtained the Red-Eyes Black Dragon through a duel with Ryuuzaki, and Jounouchi later says that it’s one of the most valuable items he owns, period. Over the course of Battle City, he manages to win cards like Insect Queen and Jinzo, and again, these are specifically stated to be rare and valuable cards. Jounouchi didn’t seek these cards out, nor did he buy them, and so I think it’s possible that he’d obtain Type: Null in a similar kind of way—that he’d get it from a trainer who didn’t want it, or rescue it from Aether Paradise scientists, or what have you. How I’m not entirely sure (hell, maybe he even befriends Gladion and Gladion gives him one? Who knows), but I don’t think it’s out of the question considering how Jounouchi gets his rare cards in the YGO canon.Secondly, during Battle City, Bakura makes an observation that Jounouchi’s cards are all grotesque, and Jounouchi gets offended, saying it’s not like he wanted them (though Bakura cheerfully says that he loves grotesque things lmao). Type: Null’s appearance is … a bit disturbing, to say the least, given that it’s a chimera that has been spliced together, and that huge control helmet it has to wear. So again, I think it fits with the theme of the cards that Jounouchi got over his time as a duelist—the ones he won / was gifted, that he didn’t specifically seek out, but kept and treasured anyway, no matter how “grotesque” they were.Lastly, I feel that Type: Null / silvally really represents Jounouchi’s own growth over the course of the series. Type: Null, when first born, was forced to wear a control helmet to restrict its power because it was prone to violent rampages and outbursts that severely endangered others. In fact, not only was it forced to wear the helmet, but all members of its species were cryogenically frozen save for the one Gladion stole. However, over the course of bonding with its trainer and coming to understand friendship, Type: Null evolved into the much more beautiful silvally. The control helmet was removed, it realized its full potential and power, and, again, the rough edges of its appearance were worn away and it became much more beautiful.In a way, Jounouchi undergoes a similar transformation over the course of the manga. When we first meet him in the beginning of the series, Jounouchi feels isolated and alone despite his friendship with Honda, he has no hopes or dreams for the future and scoffs at the idea of having any, and he’s so miserable that he channels this through bullying and violence. He’s not as bad as he was pre-canon, given that he had at least chosen to leave Hirutani’s gang even before we meet him, but he’s still in pretty rough shape. But when Yuugi defends him from Ushio and offers him friendship, for the first time Jounouchi sees an opportunity for something different, something better. And in his own words, when he returns the piece of the Millennium Puzzle he stole, “for the first time in [my] life, I started to like myself a little.” Jounouchi’s initial change is substantial, but his full character development doesn’t happen overnight. Early on in the series he’s still getting into fights that Yuugi questions him about, and he has trouble controlling his emotions even into the third volume (see: his outbursts during Death-T), which speak to the abuse he’s suffered throughout his life and the way that trauma has developed him. But as the series goes on, Jounouchi heals more and more, and truly goes into an admirable, beautiful hero. Much like how Type: Null evolves into silvally through friendship, Jounouchi develops and grows into a much better person thanks to the bond he has with Yuugi. (Something that can be shown, but can’t be seen …)So I think that silvally is a fitting final pokémon for Jounouchi, particularly since evolving a partner via friendship is precisely the type of thing he could do, even accidentally (and arguably even something he did, because Yuugi’s own growth is a result of his bond with Jounouchi, too!). “Mikata” means “friend; ally; supporter,” which I feel fits with the theme that Gladion himself chose when naming this species.

And as a final pick, if Jounouchi had a legendary pokémon that decided to watch over him / pick him as a chosen one, I think that legendary pokémon would be Victini. Not only is Victini a fire-type (and Jounouchi is very often associated with fire), but Victini is also the victory pokémon, and is actually rather lucky (which Jounouchi’s life/dueling deck is based around). Stories sounding Victini say that its trainer always wins, and while Jounouchi does not always win and while pretty much all of his victories do hinge on his impressive skill, it’s worth it to note that Victini’s ability is “Victory Star,” which gives a 10% accuracy boost to its attacks. Considering Jounouchi’s deck is luck based, and that the luck usually turns in his favor, I could imagine that he had a guardian deity giving him a 10% boost whenever he used cards like Time Wizard or Graceful Dice. So if he had a legendary pokémon watching over him, I think this little patron saint of luck and victory would be the one. (Additionally, the kanji for Jounouchi’s given name, Katsuya, contains the character 克, which can mean “to skillfully overcome” and can be used in words meaning victory, so. Victini is certainly fitting in that respect, too.)

Thanks for asking!