From Yu-Gi-Oh!

Valon is one of Dartz's three henchmen. He often quarrels with Alister, as evidenced by the one scene where they actually converse, and end up arguing. He and Rafael seem to get along fine, however. He is responsible for leading Mai Valentine (Mai Kujaku in the English manga and Japanese versions) to Dartz.

In the English dub, Valon has a heavily stylized Australian accent.

Character design

Valon's design incorporates multiple layers of clothing and a wide range of expressions. Depicted here is the duelist in "Doma Swordsman" regalia from front, side, and rear views and alongside views of his head from different angles.

Valon's usual outfit consists of typical biker clothing including goggles, gloves and padding on his shoulders and elbows. His abundance of brown hair is tossed and sticks out in all directions. Valon wears his Orichalcos Stone in a ring on his finger. He carries a Chaos Duel Disk on his left hand.

Character biography

Valon is shown as a child that loves getting into fights. He appears to be an orphan, but apparently looked after by a kind nun. One day she is in the church with Valon, cleaning wounds from a previous fight, when a group of thugs enter, telling the nun that their boss has bought the church and that they must leave. Valon is ready to fight, but the nun tells him not to. That night a fire is started at the church, Valon is there and spots the thugs from earlier, who are sniggering about it (the nun is also suspected to have been in the church at the time of the fire). Valon thinks they are responsible and later he is seen in an alley holding a length of pipe, the bodies of the thugs on the ground around him. It is uncertain whether he killed them or not, as they have been briefly seen in later scenes. (This entire sequence is from the Japanese version of the anime and is cut from the US version.)

Valon is taken to prison (or a Juvenile Detention center), where he gets into more fights. Eventually he is taken to the headmaster, who tells Valon that he will let him leave if he defeats all the other prisoners on an island, using the "Seal of Orichalcos" (the headmaster is obviously working for Dartz). Valon defeats all of his opponents. He is then encountered by Dartz and offered to work for him, and Valon accepts. Valon doesn't know that Dartz had the church burnt down. In the US version, Dartz had instead framed Valon for his first crime.

Valon eventually becomes infatuated with Mai, although she does not appear to return those feelings as strongly as he wished she would. Partly out of jealousy, and partly to help Mai let go of her past, Valon duels Joey Wheeler, a young man Mai thought fondly of, after they duel, each gains immense respect for one another. While Mai is initially angry at Valon for this, once he loses she shows great concern for him, but quickly regains her composure and duels Joey. Valon's soulless body, along with Mai's, is rescued by Rafael, and they are both restored when Dartz is defeated. He is last seen at the end of the Dawn of the Duel arc, on his motorcycle looking up at the sky.

Deck

Valon utilizes an "Armor Deck", where the monsters he Summons are equipped to his own body and he uses himself as a weapon. The majority of his strategy revolves around "Psychic Armor Head", which has the ability to search out any Armor Monster he wishes from his Deck and it also regenerates itself from the Graveyard when it is destroyed. In addition, nearly all of his Monster Cards have a powerful effect of some sort, ranging from Spell and Trap Card negation to powerful forms of Monster destruction.

"The Seal of Orichalcos" is critical to Valon's Deck, as all of his Armor monsters have 0 ATK and only certain cards can gain respectable ATK through their abilities. Furthermore, Valon uses cards that can Summon his Armor Monsters en mass and the Seal allows a player to use their Spell & Trap Card Zone for their Monster Cards, effectively doubling the number of Monster Cards that can be in play. Valon has little subtlety in his moves, as is seen with his apparent lack of Trap Cards. He prefers a straightforward offense to crush his opponent and the Duels he has been involved in are extremely fierce.