Joe Kirifuda

Joe Kirifuda is the third central protagonist of the Duel Masters Anime and Duel Masters Manga series, succeeding Katta Kirifuda, the central protagonist from the previous Victory and Versus saga.

He was one of the known Duel Master of the new generation.

Details
He is the main protagonist in the final episodes of the Versus Revolution Final season of the anime and a new generation duelist first introduced in the season, followed by his childhood friend Kira.

He's Katta Kirifuda and Lulu Takigawa's son, Shobu Kirifuda and Lucifer's nephew, Shori Kirifuda and Mai Kirifuda's grandson. Like his father and parental uncle, he learns dueling at a young age.

Like his father and parental uncle, he have abilities linking to the creature world. While his uncle Shobu was capable of making contact with the spirits and his father Katta being able to give the spirits physical forms from their cards and speech through his "Victory Mode", Joe was able to make the card designs he drew into actual cards with the help of Decky. Joe was capable of interacting with creature spirits, especially the Jokers he created.

Despite descending from the Kirifuda Family and the Takigawa Family, two families of legendary duelists, Joe is a pretty ordinary boy who was never acknowledged and intrigued by others for his bloodlines. Other kids like Shacho and his gang bully him like usual, he does not seem to attract attention by most other students in his school, while other notable duelists like Boltz and Uraraka Momo were never noticably wary of his heritage. However, Decky seemed to be aware of this since he chose Joe as a Duel Master, and some potential enemies like Kira's mother might have known his linage and otherworldly abilities, therefore took great plans to observe him.

Appearance
Joe is a 10 year old boy with brown hair which is yellow in the front, styled with a "D" and '"M" above his forehead. This is similar to the "V" for Victory Mode found on his father's head during a duel.

He wears a neckerchief given by Kira, blue wristbands and hangs his deck box (a living entity with a J on it called Decky) around his neck. He also have a red deck belt buckled on his waist. He is quite short for his age.

At the age of 3, Joe is a small toddler. He wears a toddler poncho in a model of Hamukatsu.



When he was 8 years old, the edges of his hair was not as sharp and the "D", "M" above his forehead wasn't present. He wears a red neckerchief, red wristbands and buckles a red deck belt on his waist.

Personality
Like his father Katta and parental uncle Shobu, he is quite energetic. Unlike his father, he dislikes curry bread (Because his father ate it too much and he got bored about it) and prefers ramen. He also can get a bit cocky like his father when it come to duels. Like Katta when he first picks up dueling, he was an amateur duelist in the beginning, losing many times to Kira. He was not quite good at building decks, as he placed cards from all 5 civilizations in his first deck, making it unbalanced. Despite that, he was capable of using spells and shield triggers to good use, though he have to read the card mechanics, making him a bit slow in a duel. Later on when dueling his father's friends and rivals, his skills have improved and his deck becomes more balanced. He loves drawing and western cowboys. He was shown to be a skilled artist, being the one responsible for drawing his own trump cards from one of the blank cards; Jolly the Johnny Joe, which later became an actual card. He was constantly seen with drawing materials and a sketchbook. Some individuals like Kira were impressed by his artistic skills. When he learns a new concept of dueling, he comes up and draws a card and abilities to match the concept learned. The cards he comes up with have some crazy abilities, much to his opponents' dismay or shock. He sometimes draws cards based by his friends and allies, much to their chagrin. His room was filled with drawings of creature designs, in which Joe later on uses Decky to convert them into cards. He still have liking of dragons, as his father always tells Joe stories of the legendary dragons. Joe's love of creature spirits and drawings had came to the point that his stolen dragon drawing partially came to life and rebelled against Kira's Mother in her attempt to convert it to Plan DG.

He looks up towards his father, who was one of the strongest duelists of the era he was in. His parental uncle Shobu also took a great liking of him. Due to his family members being the strongest duelists in different generations they were in, Joe aims to become stronger than them in the Duel Masters World.

When he was a toddler, he was quite shy, though he was able to introduce himself to his family and his parents' friends. He is not afraid of creature spirits as he grew up coexisting with them, even riding onto Dragon Ryu as Ryusei with Katsudon. Ironically, he did not believe that they are real despite being born and raised in the creature world until Katsudon's arrival when he was 8, which was not a surprise as Joe was too young at that time to remember.

When he was 10 years old, his personality remains almost the same as when he was 8 years old, and He also uses Decky to create Jokers which can become into real creature spirits that aid him in his daily life, such as Chotto Q being his transport mechanism. Joe carries a canteen of hot water in case he needed the creature spirit. He even considers his cards as his friends, much like his father and uncle to the point that some of the spirits are touched to tears. His dueling skills also became considerably stronger due to his training with his father, being able to defeat most opponents save for Kira and Boltz at the first part of the anime. He even can understand the concept of creature spirits due to his father's teachings and growing up with creature spirits in his early childhood.

Duel Masters Versus Revolution Final
Joe Kirifuda was born during the time his parents Katta Kirifuda and Lulu Takigawa were in a 7 year long journey in the creature world. He befriends his father's creature partner Katsudon and some of his allies since he was born, constantly playing with them before he went to the human world along with his parents and Dragon Ryu. At the age of 3, shortly after his parents' wedding, he was presented in front of Katta and Lulu's friends and family. Upon Katta revealing that Joe is his son, everyone was in a state of shock and surprise about the couple already having a kid. He was later being admired by his family and sits on his mother's lap in the group photo.



Being part of the Kirifuda Family, a prestigious family of duelists, he learns how to duel at a young age. He eventually grew up in the human world for the next 5 years. When he was 7 years old, he first met Kira, who was amazed by Joe's sketch of a cowboy. When he was 8, he tries to take one of his father's cards from his deck when he was sleeping but got caught by him as a result. He lost to Kira in a duel and decided to practice with his father. Before the day of the duel, he uses one of the blank cards and draw out Jolly the Johnny Joe, along with a name and skill. Katta then takes a look on Joe's deck, pointing out that the deck was unbalanced, though he promised Joe that he will teach him some important basics of the duel.

However, on that day, his father was not present. As he wanted to find some clues of his father's whereabouts, he took one of his mother's notebook in order to find out more about Katta's friends. He then visits Yohdel, Benchan, Bucyake and Hokaben in order to learn about his father's status and has a duel with Benchan. He uses Jolly the Johnny Joe, much to Benchan's dismay as it was the card Joe created but he have to go easy due to Joe being an elementary school kid. Joe win with Johnny's automatic win condition due to removing all of Benchan's creatures with the series of shield triggers in Benchan's turn, making Johnny the only creature in the battle zone once it was summoned.

He eventually meets one of his father's allies; Leo Hyakujuu and Nanmo Nai, who he decided to tag along with them in their spy missions. Upon learning of Leo and Nai's cooperation, he comes up with a support card Yattareman for Johnny. Again, he used Yatterman's effect to make all of his removal spells cost 1 and headed for the extra win.

Then he meets Kojiro which was working in a film studio and Kojiro did use a combination of Hellborof, Supreme Dragon Edge, Deathgoros, Supreme Devil Corrupt King, Death the Lost, Demon Revolution and Kill the Borof, Rebellion of K to put Joe to the brink but he then used his Bainaradoor card to remove all of Kojiro's creatures and headed for the win.

He then went to his uncle Lucifer's house and shoulder rides Lucifer. After then he challenges Lucifer to a duel, which Lucifer read all of his moves and the cards in his hand and in spite of Joe's drawn card, he still won with the help of Philosopher's Emblem.

He and his mother Lulu watches Basara's motor grand prix race. Finding Basara cool, he secretly entered one of the rest stops where Basara's crew were resting. As Basara's crew consisting of Hakase, Rambo, Ijiwaru Kiyomori and Rokuro recognize Joe's surname and queries if he is Katta's son, Joe answered positively, much to their surprise and shock. Joe continues to stalk Basara all the way to a high cliff, in which Basara saves Joe in time. Basara reveals to Joe how Katta have changed his perception about the world and noted that Joe was like Katta when he was determined. After the duel, Joe received his father's note from Basara, in which stated that he have to beat Kira first. Joe managed to arrive at Kira's apartment in time before Kira could leave a farewell note to Joe. As Kira have to move overseas, Joe challenges Kira to their 100th challenge, right at the place they first met. Even though Joe was stuck by Kira's labyrinth duel, he manged to unstuck himself and gain his first victory against Kira. In the airport, he and Kira exchange their scarfs before they see each other off.

Somehow his father also sees Kira off, though Joe decides to challenge him to a duel. Knowing that his father was much more capable than him, Joe drew cards based by his father's allies and comes up with crazy abilities based by their duel style. In Joe's first duel against Katta, he uses most of the cards that he comes up with, combined with their crazy abilities, much to some of Katta's friends chagrin and amazement. Katta commented that Joe had become strong due to all of the duels that Joe had went through. Joe almost commanded a direct attack until Katta uses Iron Fist of Revolution as a close shave. Joe eventually lost by his father's very first trump card, Startdash Buster, Divine Hero Mech's direct attack.

In the end, Joe accepted his father's statement of the creature spirits when Katsudon arrive. Joe then passed his father all of the cards he have drawn before his and Katsudon's departure to the creature world.

Duel Masters (2017)
2 years after the events of Versus Revolution Final, Joe was 10 years old. He and his mother moved to a new town after his father's departure to the creature world.

When he entered a Duel Masters club, he was bullied by the rich boy kid Shacho and his friends. However as soon as he went home, he saw a comet swarm and tried to photograph it, but in the middle a living deck box known as Decky hit his face. Joe bought it back home and it claimed that it can create cards, which had Joe stick in a drawing of Jolly the Johnny in its mouth, forced it to dance and stuck a key up its rear and it became a real card. He was amazed that the creature based by his drawing becomes alive until Johnny started shooting in his room. Decky then coverts Johnny into a card before more damage could be done. He then proceeds to make a deck by turning all of his drawings into cards as well.

In his second time entering the dueling club he challenges Shaccho into a duel and at first Joe swarmed the field with Jokers but Shaccho bounced all of his creatures with Sharkuga, King of the Sea and broke all of his shields. However Joe still managed to win by topdecking Jolly the Johnny and won via the extra win condition. Due to his awakening, the yellow fringes of his hair turned into "D" and '"M" style. The following day, Joe realized that he was almost late for school, and his mother left breakfast and a note saying that she has to go to work early. He have an idea and drew Chotto Q, with Decky converting the drawing into a card. Decky then uses hot water to make the card materialize and Joe rides it to school, in which it picks up speed until it reaches a staggering 300km/h, though he overshot but made it in time. However, this had caught the attention of Team Usagi consisting of Pyonko-Hime, General Rabbit and Kabamaro, forcing Joe to play dumb in order not to get found out. After school Joe went to the bar his mother and maternal great-grandfather owns in the shopping district. He continues to assemble his deck until he was called to help by his mother. Team Usagi also visits the bar and noticed the same card he used to get to school. Joe continues to be ignorant on Team Usagi's attempts to find out more about his cards, though it was unintentionally foiled by either his mother or great grandfather.

He was then spotted by the Team just to get his cards, with Rabbit reluctantly going into a duel with Joe due to pressure from Pyonko and Kabamaro. While General Rabbit summoned Georges Bataille by spamming Mafi Gangs and removed his jokers with Dark Sun and Gurudo 54, Dragon Armored, Joe used Bainaradoor against his Georges Bataille which made his graveyard have 4 cards left and defeated him with Jolly the Johnny's extra win effect. A few days later he heard that his friend Kira was arriving from the airport and he used Chotto Q to meet him. He then encountered Kira dueling a swarm of duelists and winning every single one of them and hangs out with him, stopping by in his mother's bar and showing around the shopping district. After a while, he challenges him to a duel. In the duel Kira locked him easily by sending out Shouten, Stellar Guidance and Wonder Turtle, Great Labyrinth Turtle and became extremely hostile, and despite Joe sending out Jolly the Johnny, Kira won anyway and crushed him, causing him to cry, and when he asked Kira for more answers he left without an answer, much to his dismay.

Joe returns home and decided to convert the drawing of the dragon he had kept a long time ago into a card. He mentions to Decky that when he was young, his father always tell tales about the legendary dragons and their significance in the creature world. Decky mentions to Joe that it was impossible as dragons no longer exist in his world (which matches the Duel Masters timeline).

At one time, Joe was depressed that he did not have a chance to eat ramen. He eventually drew a creature The Ramen as an alternative method to have some ramen. However, the creature itself was not into the idea of having its ramen being eaten by Joe. Joe was forced to hide The Ramen when Team Usagi arrives and secretly uses Decky to convert it into a card, but accidentally reveals the card. This results in Pyonko-Hime to challenge him to a duel.

In the duel Joe managed to send out The Ramen but was shocked to see that it was Vanilla. Pyonko-Hime then broke all of Joe's shields using Spike 7K, Ganzan Tank only to meet a last shield Bainaradoor and joe won by breaking a shield with The Ramen, then using Jolly the Johnny to extra win.

Joe eventually encounters a walking pumpkin and his classmate Uraraka Momo was following it. Joe drew Ura NICE to find out where she went. However, the creature spirit wants Joe to pay for its services to the point that Joe uses The Ramen to threaten it. Through Ura NICE's predictions, Joe arrives to a strange pumpkin field, finding Momo's smartphone and Momo being kidnapped by a rogue Shizenseijin which the spirit has taken a human form. To save her, Decky forcefully teleports the two to a tower Duel Stage despite Joe not wanting it, and the Duel Field had the similar properties as the one projected by Katta's creature partner Katsudon's Duel Field. However, Joe experienced the duel in the hard way. Like his father and parental uncle's experience, Joe sustained damage when a shield break occurs. The rogue creature managed to spam the battle zone with massive amounts of Mafariich Tanks and broke all of Joe's shields, but the last one was the Ura NICE he created which caused a reversal, allowing Joe to defeat the rogue creature.

To make matters worse, After Joe is about to win the duel, Decky forces him to kill the creature spirit at the end of the duel, completely contradicting the Kirifuda Family's spirit where nobody should die in a duel. However, Joe instead stops Johnny from finishing the creature and called Decky to turn it into a card and send it back to the creature world, which he accepts. Even though the duo managed to stop one creature spirit, Joe and Decky worries that there might be more.

During the golden week, Joe has Shacho, Fulcon Purito and Hunter tell him that they will go to a southern area, then he goes there using Bainaradoor as well. However when he went there he did not have any money to pay Bainaradoor, so he made Tutankhanen which has the ability to make money. Joe then places items into it and makes money, then encounters Shacho and his gang then Fulcon Purito challenges him into a duel. Purito uses Hemoglo, Demonic Doctor to discard Joe's hand and uses Geekogils, Misfortune Demon 06 to triple break Joe, but Joe destroys Hemoglo with a Hakushon Mask to make Purito lose due to Geekogils' demerit, but Hemoglo can revive itself at the end of the turn, so Joe used Johnny to break his last 2 shields and headed for the win. He returns to his home after getting enough money to pay for a return trip as Bainaradoor's service is a one way trip, with his mother telling him that she was planning an outing with him for the following day. In school Joe was warned by Kira about a mysterious duelist who was recently seen in different parts of the country. Boltz was later revealed to be the one that Kira described when he made an entrance in the park. Joe was about to get away when Boltz halted him and decided to duel him to get the 100th deck case, much to Joe and Decky's shock and anxiety. Boltz then fainted from hunger and Joe have to push him with a skateboard to Lulu's bar for food. Joe and his mother was quite surprised that Boltz was from a faraway region in a one-man journey and allowed him to stay at their home.

Later then Joe was hanging out with Boltz in which he suddenly challenges Joe to a duel. Boltz defeats Joe easily by rushing him aright at the start and using a Creature Trigger to save him from Jolly the Johnny's extra win. Boltz did not take his deck case afterwards and promises to duel him in the future.

Then Joe one day was ordered by The Ramen to use rare cards to lure Kabamaro and beat him to get ramen ingredients which caused General Rabbit and Pyonko-Hime beat him up then force him to tell jokes in front of a crowd with Boltz and Uraraka Momo watching. Joe then creates Baron Gelacho for this job and he hung it on his mouth in order to prevent attention. Kamamaro then challenges joe to a duel.

In the duel Kabamaro spammed Mafariich Tank and Babarga, Dragon Armored then removed all of Joe's creatures using Pumppump Panzer, but before he was going to do the final attack, Joe's last shield was a Baron Gelacho which tapped the Barbarga and Joe used the mana to remove it using Dotsuki Manjiro and headed for the win using Jolly the Johnny. While he did get the ingredient, the vial for it is broke when Uraraka Momo got angry and shot joe's face with a plug-tipped bow due to Baron Gelacho's obnoxious mouth odor.

At that night, they were unaware that Kira's mother was watching them via a camera set in Joe's house.

On the next day, Joe and Kira were having a fun duel in the courtyard of the school, with Kira defeating him easily. Joe then bids Kira farewell but does not know that Kira is going on a mission to kill Boltz via a Real Duel. While Kira failed to kill Boltz and instead teleported Boltz back to the real world, Joe was waiting for him until the sunset where Kira is spotted by Joe with a scar on his face with Joe wondering why. Kira did not give an answer and left, much to Joe feeling something is wrong with him.

Some days later Joe was barely passing a test and was grabbed by Hunter which warns him that there will be a test tomorrow and he and Fulcon Purito and Shacho will beat him. In order to countereact this, Joe created a new Jokers called Todai Sensei which is made to help him as a private tutor. However while the creature used high pressure tactics to force Joe to study, it was so dumb that it misanswers all of the questions while Decky answers all of them right, then After a whole day without sleeping, Joe sees Hunter who challenges him to a duel in the school gates, and he is equally drowsy as well. While Hunter managed to pressure him using Hyper Mustin, He was defeated by a last minute Bainaradoor. However, due to both Joe and Hunter not sleeping the whole night, they slept at the test and Lulu punished Joe in an extremely threatening manner.

Back at home, Joe realized that his dragon drawing was gone, in which Kira's mother took it for her unknown objectives. Even Decky suspected the reasons of the drawing being taken. Joe participates the New Generation Hobby Fair with Momo, though he was warned about a gang who steals rare cards. He have fun with Momo, receiving free cards, watching a show with Duel Leader Daiki and Duel Prince Noel as the hosts and receiving more cards from them. He eventually encounters another Duel Warrior, this time a Kiradon who petrified the gang and Momo (With Momo affected because she tried to take a picture of the Duel Warrior), forcing him and Decky to initiate a Duel Tower Field. During the duel, he realize that Kiradon went to the human world in order to have some fun dueling with other human duelists, but can't tolerate the gang who steal their precious cards. Joe defeats Kiradon and gives it 'punishment'; sending it back to the creature world. Due to this, the people petrified were returned back to normal and the gang returns the victims' cards out of fear.

In one day, he wanted to eat desserts but did not have money, so he created Chocolate House. However because the creature refused to make him desserts after one, he went to the souvenir market with the creature with Pali Nights acting as its leg. Joe fed a candy to the creature and it wrongly guessed the price of the candy, but proceeded to make a dessert for joe anyway. However after it did so the creature ran and it was in Lulu's bar. However Team Usagi found the 2 creature spirits walking around and Team Usagi's Pyonko-Hime removes her disguise and challenges Joe into a duel. In the duel Pyonko-Hime pressurized Joe's battlefield with Gashagozra, Misfortune Demon 03 and Spike 7K, Ganzan Tank but the last shield trigger was a Time Stopon and she was defeated when Joe beat back her creatures until she has 2 left and headed for the extra win.

Manga
Joe has created creature cards that became reality known as Jokers and used them to defeat the rich boy kid Shacho. One day he has encountered the Jolly the Johnny Master Card and caught it using a rope. However after eating a bowl of ramen he encountered Team Usagi consisting of Pyonko-Hime, General Rabbit and Kabamaro which used a pair of pincers to get the card and fled.

This had him creating Bainaradoor and caused him to drop in the top of the Tokyo Skytree, in the middle of a pond in a park where Kira was eating an ice cream cone, into antartica and finally into the moon before entering Pyonko-Hime's base in a hot air balloon where he landed on top of the princess and stole the master card, enraging General Rabbit and General Rabbit challenges him to a duel.

In the duel Rabbit destroys Joe's Jokers with Mukade, Asura and he destroys it with Chotto Q, but Rabbit then regenrates Mukade and kills his Pali Nights. However when the Mukade broke Joe's last shield it was a Bainaradoor and on the next turn Joe sent out Jolly the Johnny and beat him using the extra win condition. However he has mistakenly enraged Kira since he mistakenly swiped his ice cream cone into the ground when he left the park where Kira is encountered.

Duel Masters Versus Revolution Final
Statistics

Aside of these statistics, he dueled Kira from Episode 45 to Episode 49 at the beginning of each episode, but all of those matches resulted in a loss. He had a total of 100 duels with Kira in the course of the story, meaning that he lost 99 duels against him at this period of time.

In his first deck, all of the cards used are from all 5 civilizations. Despite being unbalanced, the usage of multiple shield triggers and spells in the deck helps to make up for the flaw. He prefer to use alternate wins through Jolly the Johnny Joe's ability, therefore he uses and comes up with cards to remove all of his opponent's creatures from their side of the field.

In the later stages, his deck is more balanced, consisting of Fire, Nature and Light Civilization cards. All of the listed civilizations are primarily used by his parents and relatives.

Duel Masters (2017)
Statistics

He uses a Jokers civilization deck with a few Fire Civilization cards. He uses cards from DMSD-01 Joe's Jokers and DMRP-01 Here Come the Jokers!!. He later on uses cards from DMRP-02 Seriously B・A・D What Labyrinth!!.

Trivia

 * He is the artist for his namesake card, Jolly the Johnny Joe. (However, the real artist seems to be Shigenobu Matsumoto)
 * Joe is the third central protagonist to be part of the Kirifuda Family, succeeding his uncle Shobu and his father Katta.
 * Joe, Katta and Shobu have similar character concepts;
 * All 3 uses Fire as their main civilization (though Joe switches to Jokers with a few Fire cards)
 * All aim to surpass each other and their own family members in the Duel Masters World.
 * The character concept of Katta and Joe is a "Father and Son" bond, similar to Shori and Shobu
 * All 3 of them shares the same voice actress Yumiko Kobayashi in childhood and teenage years.
 * The protagonists have a deep connection to the creature world, though Joe was born and spent the first 3 years of his life in the creature world together with his parents.
 * However, Joe was never a source of fame and intrigue based on his ancestry, and he was currently not targeted by any antagonist who targeted Shobu or Katta.
 * Joe is the only protagonist that is known to cheat in the anime (By adding proxy cards in his deck).
 * This might be because he was just a kid at that time and does not know that adding proxy cards into a deck is against the game rules instead on acting on deliberate misconduct. He also no longer does this when he was older.
 * His first name Joe is a common English name, making him the first central protagonist in the main series to not have a Japanese first name.
 * As Joe was 3 years old in his first appearance, this means that his parents were 18-19 when he was born by age estimation.
 * Joe was the first main character in the anime and manga to design and illustrate his own cards.
 * Joe was the youngest central protagonist known to make his debut in the main series, being 3 years old when first introduced and his story saga in the anime starts when he was 8 years old.
 * Joe's academic results are seen to be able to barely passing the lowest pass quota (Which is 50 marks) or slightly lower than that in the Anime.