Nico Smiley

Nico Smiley

English name	Nico Smiley
Japanese name Japanese ニコ・スマイリー Rōmaji Niko Sumairī
Other language names
German	Nico Smiley
Gender	Male
Occupation	Duelist manager, Maiami Championship staff
Anime debut	Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V episode 0011: "Swing Into Action: Part 1"
Appears in Anime Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Japanese voice	Hajime Iijima
Other language voices
German	Tobias Lelle
Smiley, Nico

Nico Smiley is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime. He is a manager of professional Duelists, having managed The Sledgehammer.

Design

Appearance

In the dub, Nico Smiley's moustache is lengthened to avoid resembling Adolf Hitler.

Nico Smiley's moustache comparison. Left is the Japanese version and right is the dubbed version.

Etymology

Smiley's first name comes from the onomatopoeia "nico nico", a term for when someone is all smiles.

Biography

Nico approached Skip Boyle at the behest of the Leo Institute of Dueling, who wished to have the champion The Sledgehammer Duel You Show Duel School student Yuya Sakaki, as The Sledgehammer never got the oppurtunity to Duel the boy's father, who had no-showed at their championship match. Leo Institute agreed to give You Show Duel School their new Solid Vision with mass system free of charge in exchange. Yuya eventually agreed. On the day of the Duel, Nico functioned as a commentator.

After The Sledgehammer lost to Yuya, he stepped down as champion and went overseas to train, leaving Smiley without a Duelist to manage. He eventually approached Yuya, offering a free entrance to the Junior Youth Championship if Yuya agreed to take him on as manager. Yuya refused, insisting that he wanted to enter the tournament through the usual means. He instead asked Nico to aid him in finding opponents to defeat, as he needed four more wins to qualify, to which Nico agreed.

Nico arranged Yuya to duel Four different opponents including his best friend Gong. Each duel was designed to train Yuya to become a professional duelist in a different way. Yuya defeated all of them and surpassed Nico's expectations, much to his pleasure. During the Miami Championship inauguration ceremony, he requested Yuya to give a speech as part of his training.

Before Yuya left to the Synchro Dimension with the rest of the Lancers, Nico revealed he had very high hopes for Yuya and expected him to take over the pro dueling world, yet he said that he was still proud of him.