| “ | You see, I've found that, given the proper incentive, anyone can be made to play my game! | „ |
| ~ Pegasus's most famous quote, moments before he steals Sugoroku Muto's soul with his Millennium Eye. |
| “ | That's the way life goes, Jonouchi... Never as you've planned. The world is a very arbitrary place, isn't it? It's a place where you can be locked in a battle with your dearest friend for stakes neither can afford to lose. Oh, I know you'd like to think that your friendship would be enough to sustain you through any mishap of misfortune. But that's not the way the world works. No, the world is a place where fate intervenes when you least expect it, with consequences that can turn your world upside down. Just when you think you've etched the perfect portrait of your future and your life couldn't get any better... Just when you let down your guard at last and open your heart... When against all odds, you've found that one special person in all the world that fills your heart with joy... The person you know you're destined to spend the rest of your life with... That's when tragedy strikes, when fate hits you with a cold slap of reality and shows you who's the boss. Yes, the world has taught me that only the strong and the ruthless survive. In memory of all I have lost, I fight on with all I possess, and I intend to win! | „ |
| ~ Pegasus' internal monologue, explaining his motives for duelling and hinting at his backstory. |
| “ | Let the fun begin. | „ |
| ~ Pegasus as he activates Toon World. |
Pegasus J. Crawford (known as Maximillion J. Pegasus in the English dub) is one of the main characters in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. He serves as the main antagonist of the Duelist Kingdom arc and a major character in his subsequent appearances in the anime continuity.
He is an eccentric businessman and artist best known as the creator of Duel Monsters, the CEO of Industrial Illusions and the orchestrator of the Duellist Kingdom tournament, as well as being the former possessor of the Millennium Eye, enabling him to read minds or trap people's souls inside cards.
He was voiced by Jiro Jay Takasugi in the Japanese version of the anime, and Darren Dunstan in the English dubbed version.
History[]
Duelist Kingdom[]
Pegasus was in love with a woman named Cyndia (Cecilia in the 4Kids dub), who tragically died from illness. He searched for a way to bring her back, and found Shadi in the area where the Millennium Items were kept, discovering that with Kaiba Corp's technology and with all seven Millennium Items he could bring her back to life. Shadi gave him the Millennium Eye, saying that if he is destined for it, he will get to keep it, but if he is not, he will be condemned to eternal nightmares beyond his imagination. He was the one destined to possess the Millennium Eye, which replaced his left eye. He created the Duel Monsters card game based off the ancient Shadow Games people used to play in Egypt.
In the American Championship duel from New York City, Pegasus brought a boy to outsmart and humiliated "Bandit" Keith Howard from his national title.
Pegasus then set out to collect all seven Millennium Items and take over Kaiba Corp. He was initially a good friend of Seto Kaiba, but soon attempted to take over Kaiba Corp by force, conspiring with the Big Five and kidnapping Kaiba's younger brother Mokuba when he was gone. Before he did this, he hosted a tournament called Duelist Kingdom in order to win Yugi's Millennium Puzzle. He defeated Yugi in a duel and trapped his grandfather Sugoroku's soul inside a card in order to get him to enter. The finals took place in Pegasus' castle, where Pegasus held Mokuba prisoner, and when Kaiba found him, he trapped his soul inside a card. Kaiba dueled Pegasus but lost, as his opponent could read minds with his Millennium Eye, and Pegasus imprisoned his soul inside a card. In Jonouchi's duel against Bandit Keith, Pegasus revealed Keith stole Jonouchi's card and cheated by hidden his "7 Card" cards underneath his wristband. After which Keith drew a pistol (removed in the English version) and demanded the prize money from Pegasus, who then pressed a button and sprung a trap door, dropping Keith into the ocean.
After Yugi won the finals of Duelist Kingdom, he dueled Pegasus, and eventually gained the advantage against him by switching around between Yugi and Dark Yugi so Pegasus could not read his mind. However, Pegasus regained the advantage by taking them into hell (or the Shadow Realm in the English version), which weakened Yugi and nearly killed him, but the power of Jonouchi, Anzu and Honda's friendship was able to overpower Pegasus' mind-reading power, and Dark Yugi defeated Pegasus. He released the souls of Sugoroku and the Kaiba brothers.
Pegasus was then attacked by Dark Bakura, who defeated him in a duel using their Millennium Items, as he was tired from his duel with Yugi, and he took Pegasus' Millennium Eye. Pegasus was last seen being taken away by his men, who told Yugi and the others that he was ill.
Pegasus was also shown to be interested by Ryuji Otogi’s Dungeon Dice game; after Yugi beat Pegasus and became the King of Games, Otogi was initially angry at Yugi, thinking he had cheated to win in his duel against Pegasus and blaming him for ruining his chances of selling his game, but then apologized after Yugi beat him, now realizing that Yugi played honestly and fairly. Otogi’s company then got an email from Industrial Illusions, which said that his game had been accepted after seeing the match on television.
Pyramid of Light[]
These events take place after Battle City and before Waking The Dragons. Pegasus dreams of the impending danger as it enters his room to set its plan in motion. Soon after, Seto Kaiba arrives and demands a way to defeat Yugi's three Egyptian God Cards since he knew Pegasus would not let them go without a way to take them down. Pegasus admits to having a card that may work, but does not agree to duel for it until after Kaiba wagers his three "Blue-Eyes White Dragons". Though he uses his beloved Toons, Pegasus is defeated after Kaiba uses "XYZ-Dragon Cannon" to destroy "Toon World" (which destroys the toon monsters as well) and attack him directly. Kaiba discovers two cards to take on the God Cards and does not believe Pegasus when he insists he only had one. Pegasus investigates the extra card and discovers the history of Anubis and arrives just in time to save Anzu Mazaki, Sugoroku Muto, and Mokuba from being crushed when Kaiba's Duel Dome starts to collapse. When Anubis reveals himself to duel the Pharaoh and the building collapses further, Pegasus Summons "Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon" and "Toon Black Magician Girl" to catch some falling debris before they are (goofishly) crushed.
Waking the Dragons[]
Pegasus never returned until Season 4, Waking the Dragons, where he made a card for Yugi that would help him defeat Dartz (by turning the legendary dragons into knights), but he was defeated by Mai Kujaku, who was under the influence of Dartz, and his soul was taken by the Orichalcos. He was released when the Orichalcos God was defeated, and later appeared in Season 5 during one scene before Yugi's duel with Dark Yugi. It is interesting to note that the left side of his face (which once had the Millennium Eye) always remains hidden by his hair.
Final Season of Yu-Gi-Oh![]
In the ending of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pegasus is seen to make deals with Siegfried and his brother, Leon.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Reshef of Destruction[]
Under the alias of Sol Chevalsky, Pegasus returns as the main antagonist of the game. Here he was corrupted by the tablet of Reshef, the Dark Being, and turned all 3 Egyptian Gods to stone, causing the Millenium Items to vanish across the Globe. The Team of the Player, Yugi, and Joey then go across the Earth to retrieve them, and stop Sol.
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX[]
Pegasus appears as a major character of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. He created the Gem Beasts, later giving them to Johan Andersen due to their bond for him. He created a replica of the "Winged Divine Dragon of Ra" until one of his employees, Franz, stole it until his defeat by Judai Yuki. Pegasus invited Samejima to talk about the Light of Destruction and the reason for Edo Phoenix searching his father's ultimate card "Destiny HERO - Bloo-D". After Duel Academia was transfer to another dimension where duel monsters come to life, Pegasus founded a "Ultimate Gem God - Rainbow Dragon" stone tablet and created it to send it to the dimension for Johan to use it to bring Duel Academia back to academy island.
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's[]
A poster featured in episode 98 reveals that the World Racing Grand Prix was sponsored by several corporations featured in previous Yu-Gi-Oh! series. One such sponsor was the Pegasus J. Crawford Memorial Service, implying that by this time, Pegasus had passed away.
Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time[]
Pegasus is the target of Paradox, the main antagonist in Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time. Here, Paradox aims to kill Pegasus using Yusei Fudo's "Stardust Dragon", eliminating Duel Monsters from existence in order to prevent his future from being destroyed by Synchro Summoning. When Paradox came to Yugi Muto's time during a tournament that Pegasus was hosting, he used his Sin Dragons to destroy buildings in the plaza, resulting in Pegasus' death as he was crushed under a collapsing building, along with several other bystanders, including Sugoroku Muto. Yugi then traveled back in time with Judai Yuki and Yusei to a point prior to both Pegasus' arrival in Domino City and Paradox's, so that the three can defeat Paradox. After Paradox's defeat, Pegasus is then shown distributing cards at the event.
Personality[]
| “ | Who would have thought you even had a heart — let alone one so easily broken? | „ |
| ~ Dark Bakura mocking Pegasus for his hidden sympathetic nature. |
Pegasus was an eccentric and jovial man who in many respects was actually very polite and friendly in spite of his villainous nature, he was quite cynical however due to the loss of his lover. He was quite arrogant as well and somewhat overconfident and enjoyed toying with his opponent in battle, this became problematic after he lost the millennium eye however as he had became rusty at duelling after getting overreliant on its abilities. He also had quite the temper and was greatly obsessed with both bringing Duel Monsters into the world as well as resurrecting Cyndia, the latter of which being his primary motivation for everything he did, much to the surprise of nearly everyone around him.
Despite his villainy, he is proven to be a man of his word, as when Yugi beat him in a duel, he fulfilled the promise of freeing the souls he trapped.
Pegasus also had a love for cartoons especially Funny Rabbit, shown by the vast amount of toon based cards in his deck.
In dubbed, he is more generous to address those male characters who are younger than him as boy (such as Yugi as Yugi-boy, Seto as Kaiba-boy, Joey as Joey-boy, Jaden as Jaden-boy and Jesse as Jesse-boy).
Appearance[]
Pegasus was a handsome and fairly effeminate young man with fair skin and collarbone length white hair that sometimes looks blue, lavender or grey depending on the lighting. He always had a fairly youthful appearance, even in Yu-Gi-Oh GX where he would have been in his mid 40s.
He mostly wore double breasted red suits with white piping and buttons (and trousers in the manga), a white frilled shirt, navy blue western cravat (green in the manga) and white shoes. In his first duel with Yugi in the shadow realm however he wore a red turtleneck and black double breasted suit instead. On occasion (such as in the 2004 movie) he wore a slightly darker almost plum coloured version of his original suit which had, yellow lapels alongside a black shirt and shoes instead of white and a navy blue cravat. He also wore navy blue slacks with this particular outfit.
He also had his right eye socket filled with the millennium eye until it was taken by Dark Bakura, after this his eye was always obscured by his hair, and it has never been shown what it looks like on screen but judging from character reactions to it is likely ghastly. In the manga when his eye was removed it simply left a bloody hole where it once was.
While travelling in his Egypt exhibitions he wore traditional safari style clothing, as well as a red ascot. While painting and during some of his time with Cyndia he wore brown trousers, a yellow dress shirt and purple suspenders.
Deck[]
Pegasus plays a Toon deck, with his signature cards being the spell "Toon World" and the monster "Copycat". "Toon World's" effect allows Pegasus to take control of his opponent's Monsters and transform them into "Toon" versions of themselves, such as Kaiba's "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", Yugi's "Dark Magician Girl" and "Summoned Skull", and Velian Crowler's "Ancient Gear Golem". His main strategy is to use his opponent's own monsters and card effects against them, and also used the Millenium Eye to read his opponent's minds and counter their strategies while the artifact was in his possession. During his duel with Dark Yugi at the end of Duelist Kingdom, Pegasus uses four cards he created specifically for the duel; "Relinquished", "Thousand-Eyes Idol", "Dark Eyes-Illusionist", and the fusion of "Relinquished" and "Thousand-Eyes Idol", "Thousand-Eyes Restrict", his most powerful monster.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Unnamed father
- Cyndia (wife ; deceased)
- Yako Tenma (adoptive son)
- Gekko Tenma (adoptive son)
- Depre Scott (adoptive son)
- Richie Merced (adoptive son)
Allies[]
- Industrial Illusions
- His own security
- Mr. Crocketts
- Franz
- Mr. Phoenix
- Hayato Maeda
- Shadi
- Ishizu Ishtar
- Kaiba Corp
- Seto Kaiba
- Mokuba Kaiba
- Yugi Muto
- Dark Yugi
- Katsuya Jonouchi
- Anzu Mazaki
- Hiroto Honda
- Sugoroku Muto
- Ryou Bakura
- Ryuji Otogi
- Eliminators
- Labyrinth Brothers
- Player Killer of Darkness
- Imitator of Death
- Ventriloquist of the Dead
- Big Five (formerly)
- Schroeder Corp
- Siegfried Von Schroeder
- Leon Von Schroeder
- Judai Yuki
- Edo Phoenix
- Johan Anderson
- Ryo Marufuji
- Samejima
- Dr. Allbert Zweinstein
- Austin O'Brien
Enemies[]
- Seto Kaiba (formerly)
- Mokuba Kaiba (formerly)
- Kaiba Corp (formerly)
- Yugi Muto (formerly)
- Dark Yugi (formerly)
- Katsuya Jonouchi (formerly)
- Anzu Mazaki (formerly)
- Hiroto Honda (formerly)
- Sugoroku Muto (formerly)
- Ryou Bakura (formerly)
- Dark Bakura
- "Bandit" Keith Howard
- Dartz (though he was under the Orichaclos' control)
- Doma
- Paradius
- Amelda
- Valon
- Rafael
- Mai Kujaku
- Franz (formerly)
- DD
- The Light of Destruction
- Echo
- Darkness
- Anubis
- Paradox
Gallery[]
.jpg "Weekly Shonen Jump No. 25 (1998).jpg (416 KB)")
List of Cards[]
- Parrot Dragon
- Toon Alligator
- Sea Archer
- Toon Mermaid
- Devil Box
- Copycat (refers it as "Doppelganger")
- Dragon Egger
- Toon Gemini Elf
- Treasure Cards from the Heavens
- Toon Dragon Egger
- Toon Table of Contents
- Jar Djinn
- Toon World (signature card)
- Toon Kingdom
- Pot of Dragon-Tribe Sealing
- Sacrifice
- Thousand-Eyes Pagan God
- Toon Black Magician Girl
- Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon
- Toon Daemon's Summoning
- Toon Antique Gear Golem
- Shadow Toon
Trivia[]
- In the original manga, Pegasus was killed by Dark Bakura when the latter ripped the millennium eye from his face whereas in the anime adaptation he survived but was heavily injured and hospitalized until after the events of the Battle City arc, the reason he was kept alive was due to his popularity with audiences, this is why he returned for not only series four of the anime, but the first two theatrical films in the series as well as GX.
- Additionally Pegasus' socket which once held the millennium eye has never been seen on screen however reactions from characters such as Seto Kaiba to the site of it have been seen.
- Pegasus is one of the most popular and well known villains in the series second only to Dark Bakura, perhaps due to him making his debut quite early in both the anime and manga. He is also one the franchise's most popular and iconic characters in general.
- According to Pegasus, one of the reasons he has a Toon Deck is because cartoon shows in his days were the absolute best, and none was closer to his heart than his favorite cartoon series "The Misadventures of One Tricky Hare", with the heroic pink rabbit and protagonist Funny Rabbit and the bulldog police officer and the antagonist Ruff Ruff McDogg. When playing his Toon monsters on the field, the cuddliest creature never gets hit. Additionally, in 3,013 episodes of Pegasus' favorite cartoon show, McDogg never laid a hand on Funny Rabbit, as he would try and try, but never would he succeed, which is almost similar to the famous cartoon show Tom and Jerry and the famous Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
External Links[]
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 Villains
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