Seto Kaiba

Seto Kaiba (海馬 瀬人) (born October 25) is a fictional character and Anti-hero in the manga and anime series Yu-Gi-Oh!. As the majority shareholder and CEO of his own multi-national gaming company, Kaiba Corporation (海馬コーポレイション), Kaiba holds the reputation of being Japan's greatest gamer and aims to become the world's greatest player of the American card game, Duel Monsters (DM(デュエル モンスターズ)) (Magic & Wizards (Ｍ＆Ｗ(マジックアンドウィザーズ)) in the Japanese manga). In all mediums, his arch-rival is the protagonist of the series, Yugi Mutou, who is also a superb game player.

In the manga, Seto Kaiba starts off as an antagonist, being the main villain of the Death-T arc of the manga, and later becomes an anti-hero. In the second series anime, he starts off as a villain in the first episode and quickly becomes an anti-hero, often being promoted from his supporting role in the manga to a larger role in the anime - having a more prominent role than he did in the manga and being a major character in all of the anime's filler arcs.

He is the modern day reincarnation of one of the Pharaoh's Six High Priests, Priest Seto (神官セト), who appears as an NPC in the final arc's Shadow RPG.

Design
Kaiba is a character created and designed by Kazuki Takahashi. He is based on a collectible card games player whom a friend of Kazuki Takahashi met. Takahashi's friend asked this person to teach him how to play a card game, but he replied "Hmp! Come back when you've collected 10,000 cards". The story made Takahashi mad, but thought the player would make a good character.

In his first appearance in chapters 9 and 10 of the manga, Kaiba's basic facial characteristics are mostly the same, although his face and hair appear less angular than his mainstay appearance, and his eyes are much smaller. This appearance in the manga is also the only time he is seen with a Domino High School uniform, aside from a few episodes in the second series anime. Later on during the Death-T arc, his appearance starts to shape into his more familiar current design. He wore a KaibaCorp outfit that consisted of a white collared suit and pants. When Kaiba awakens from his coma in the Duelist Kingdom arc, he switches this outfit out for a dark blue duster trenchoat (purple in the anime), and wears a Magic & Wizards locket that contains a picture of his younger brother, Mokuba Kaiba.

His usual outfit from the second series anime and Battle City arc of the manga consists of a long white sleeveless KaibaCorp-designed coat that featured shoulder pads and a raised studded collar, with black sleeves from his shirt coming out from under. He has extra belts in pairs strapped around his upper arms and shins. In this design, he often wears a KaibaCorp mass-produced Duel Disk on his left arm. While Kaiba's earlier appearances usually depicted him with pupil-less eyes, Kaiba appears more frequently with pupils after he successfully reconstructs his shattered heart following the conclusion of the Duelist Kingdom arc. In the second series anime, Kaiba appearance becomes less "evil" after he receives a Mind Crush from Dark Yugi at the end of the first episode.

In the Toei version of the anime, Seto Kaiba's hair was green and he often wore a school uniform that was white like his Death-T outfit. In all other versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba has brown hair.

Kaiba is dismissive in his manner of speech, represented in the original Japanese version of the series by his omission of honorifics, and his use of the boastful word ore to mean "I" instead of the usual boku (which he uses in his first appearances in both the manga and anime).

Character
Seto's mother died after the birth of Mokuba, and his father died in an accident when he was eight years old. Orphaned, their relatives used up their inheritance and left them at the orphanage. When Seto was twelve, the head of KaibaCorp, Gozaburo Kaiba, arrived at the orphanage and Seto saw the chance to challenge him to a game of chess, with Gozaburo forced to adopt Seto and Mokuba should he win. Seto defeated him (through cheating in the manga) and the brothers were adopted, but Gozaburo forced Seto into a rigorous accelerated school program, making him study several academic subjects such as sociology, management, and game tactics for days on end while treating him like a dog, and every day was like torture to Seto. Later these studies had given Seto the skills and knowledge to take over the company shares, turning Gozaburo's successor into his worst enemy. Upon his take over, Gozaburo committed suicide by jumping out the window and died from defenestration. These events ingrained a twisted philosophy into Seto's already tainted mind, that defeat is the same as death.

In the second series anime, Seto did not have enough of the companies shares to take over, but Mokuba gave Seto his percent, giving Seto KaibaCorp's shares, and seizing control of the company all the while discharging his foster father. After that, his foster father uploaded his mind to a type of KaibaCorp software where he temporarily lived in cyberspace. This does not happen in the original manga story.

Favoring chess and card games, Kaiba is an expert game player and has a large amount of pride in his abilities. He is an arrogant and self-centered gamer with little time for anyone beyond himself or his younger brother Mokuba, making him a classic anti-hero. However, at the start of the manga series, he is shown to have thrown away brotherly affections and favored sticking to his philosophy of "defeat is the same as death," willing to subject his little brother to a horrific artificial Penalty Game after Mokuba lost to Dark Yugi in a game of Capsule Monster Chess. After Dark Yugi saves Mokuba, it is implied that Seto isn't behaving the way that he's naturally supposed to, prompting Dark Yugi to give him the Penalty Game, Mind Crush, after his defeat.

After his Mind Crush-induced coma by Dark Yugi, intending for Kaiba to rearrange the puzzle of his heart back to the way it once was before he became twisted, he is devoted and protective towards his only brother Mokuba, and has risked his life for him on several occasions. Likewise, Mokuba is equally devoted to Seto and is frequently seen at his side. Despite his redemption, during the latter part of the series, Seto still suffered from the problem of wanting to be the best leftover by his stepfather and still looks down on people he thinks are weaker than him, such as Katsuya Jonouchi, and looks down on Yugi's idea of friendship. His desire to defeat Yugi also develops from a murderous grudge to an obsessive rivalry, coming to respect him as a fellow gamer after fighting a common adversary, Maximillion J. Pegasus. Nevertheless, Kaiba shows an outward disregard for the safety of Yugi's friends. Despite this, he still often helps them out on a few occasions, especially in the second series anime adaptation, claiming that Yugi or one of his friends helped him and he owes them, or that the villain's desires are in direct conflict with his own interests. Eventually his complex for being the best and his haunting past with his stepfather is resolved near the conclusion of the Battle City arc of the manga and anime.

In the manga, it is the magic of Dark Yugi's Shadow Game and Penalty Game that inspires the creation of his holographic system and his artificial Penalty Games during the Death-T arc. In the Japanese version of the anime, while he acknowledges that things such as dark magic exists, he doesn't pay much interest in them. In the English dub, although magical powers and items are often used in the series, Kaiba does not believe in such things, and, when necessary, convinces himself that it is all tricks and illusions due to the fail-safes in his programming. Kaiba changes in personality from the second season of the second series anime dub onwards. In the first season, Kaiba acknowledges Pegasus' ability to read minds, as well as the "Heart of the Cards". Although he does not like Yugi and Joey, he does not act hostile towards them, except during the first episode. However, in the second season, his acceptance of faith and magic vanishes. Although he begins to question some of the fantastical events he witnesses throughout the series, he never fully accepts magic as a viable explanation for these events.

In the Memory World arc Kaiba's past life, Priest Seto, is introduced. Priest Seto is depicted as being less antagonistic than modern-day Kaiba, and is portrayed as being loyal with a strong sense of justice.

Priest Seto
In the Millennium World arc of the manga and anime, Kaiba is revealed to be the reincarnation of the ancient Egyptian Priest Seto, holder of the Millennium Rod and cousin to Pharaoh Atem, whose spirit inhabits the body of Yugi Mutou in the present day, and appears as an NPC in the tabletop role-playing game reenactment of history, the Shadow RPG, also known as the Memory World. When the Pharaoh and his kingdom comes under threat from Thief King Bakura, Seto has many criminals gathered together so that he may identify those with powerful "Ka" – Monster Spirits created within an individual's soul – that may help defend the Pharaoh's rule and dispose of those that may cause anarchy in the kingdom. During his search, Priest Seto takes into custody a girl named Kisara, whose Ka is revealed to be the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Seto develops strong feelings for the girl, which appear to be returned, as Kisara later sacrifices herself to save Seto from Akhenaden who was overcome by the influence of Zorc Necrophades (this only happens in the anime; in the manga, Kisara is killed by Akhenaden with his lightning blast). In the aftermath, Seto holds Kisara's body in front of the BEWD tablet and weeps – notably, this is the "vision" which appears to Kaiba during his duel in the Battle City arc. When the remnants of Akhenaden's soul attempts to influence Seto's mind in order to make him the King of Darkness, Atem battles him in order to restore him to his former self. The spirit of Kisara helps him push away Akhenaden's dark influence and kills Akhenaden once and for all, allowing Dark Yugi to win the RPG against Dark Bakura. In the anime, the events are reversed. After Akhenaden is killed, Priest Seto later assists Atem in the final battle against Zorc Necrophades. Atem says that his reign is over, and names Seto the new pharaoh. When Dark Yugi looks back into the diaorama of the Shadow RPG, Priest Seto is shown to be the new Pharaoh. Priest Seto then creates the famous stone carving of the two of them as a tribute to their friendship. He is later seen welcoming Atem into the afterlife in the last chapter of the series.

According to Takahashi, Priest Seto's feelings for Kisara are the basis behind Kaiba's modern-day obsession with the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

Early manga
In the early manga, Seto discovers that the grandfather of his classmate, Yugi Mutou, owns the rare Blue-Eyes White Dragon card. Kaiba steals the card from Yugi by switching it with a fake copy. Yugi recognizes the card for a fake and tries to convince Kaiba to give it back. Yugi is smacked by Kaiba's briefcase and Dark Yugi emerges from within Yugi's Millennium Puzzle to challenge Kaiba to a Shadow Game of Duel Monsters with the card as a prize, with the loser awaiting a Penalty Game that's similar to death. Although Kaiba nearly wins, the Shadow Game laws of the game prevents him from attacking with the stolen Blue-Eyes, as it retained its loyalty for Sugoroku Mutou, and Kaiba is defeated, suffering Dark Yugi's Penalty Game: Experience of Death (死(し)の体感(たいかん)). In the first series anime adaptation, he narrowly escapes defeat, ending the game in a draw, and appears as a recurring antagonist plotting against Yugi in the background.

Death-T
Begrudged over the loss and the nightmares that followed his Penalty Game, Kaiba plots a revenge. He acquires the other three Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards in existence (through extortion and blackmail) and builds "Death T," a "theme park" made up of many deadly games and challenges designed to end the lives of Yugi and his friends. Yugi and his friends witness a Duel Monsters match between Seto and Yugi's grandfather, who was forced to participate when Kaiba threatens Yugi's life. Kaiba wins and tears up Sugoroku's Blue-Eyes White Dragon and subjects Sugoroku to an artificial Penalty Game that mimicked his own, forcing Yugi to participate in Death-T or else he'll kill his grandfather. After Yugi and his friends conquer the deadly games, Dark Yugi plays a game of Virtual Duel Monsters with Kaiba. Although Kaiba proves formidable with the three Blue-Eyes in his deck, Yugi wins by summoning Exodia. Yugi then uses the power of his Millennium Puzzle to subject Kaiba to a Penalty Game called the Mind Crush, shattering his heart to pieces; rearranging them and leaving Kaiba in a coma, until he can put it back together to the way it was supposed to be before he was tainted by evil. Kaiba eventually regains consciousness later in the manga during the Duelist Kingdom arc.

In the second series anime and its adaptation of the manga, Kaiba instead kidnaps Sugoroku and duels him to win the card. Kaiba quickly acquires the other Blue-Eyes within the span of a day, and acquires the fourth card to destroy it so nobody could use it against him. To avenge his grandfather, Yugi duels Kaiba and defeats him with Exodia, then uses his powers to purge the darkness that has clouded Kaiba's mind. Kaiba later loses interest in dueling and his company, leaving on a trip to find himself. In both the anime and manga, with Kaiba gone, Duel Monsters creator and Millennium Eye wielder Maximillion Pegasus schemes to take control of Kaiba Corp from Seto by conspiring with its board of directors, the Big Five, and abducting Mokuba. Part of his plan involves hosting a Duel Monsters tournament on his private island, Duelist Kingdom, which Yugi participates in.

Duelist Kingdom
After Kaiba wakes up from his coma, the Ventriloquist of the Dead couldn't control Kaiba's stolen Blue-Eyes White Dragon in Duelist Kingdom and loses his Shadow Game with Dark Yugi. Kaiba gets wind of Pegasus' plans and his kidnap of Mokuba, and travels to Duelist Kingdom with a newly improved and portable version of his holographic technology (the Duel Disk) to counter Pegasus' mind-reading, which he believes is only effective at a distance. On the helicopter ride to Duelist Kingdom, he notices that it was flying in a circle and soon finds out that his bodyguard and pilot have betrayed him and were working for Pegasus. Kaiba jams the guard's gun with a card and breaks the guard's fingers for making him ruin a rare card. After throwing him into the sea, he threatens to shoot the pilot in a head if he doesn't jump into the water, and then proceeds to head to the island himself. Meeting up with Yugi and his friends, Kaiba regains his deck and briefly battles Jonouchi, who is still angry about what Kaiba had done to them during Death-T. He easily beats Jonouchi with his new card system and proceeds to Pegasus's castle. After making his way into the castle by disarming Crocketts and taking him in as a hostage (threatening to snap his neck in his briefcase), Kaiba is offered a deal by Pegasus – defeat Yugi in a duel in exchange for the right to duel Pegasus and save his sibling, as well as his company. Kaiba and Yugi later play the game atop the castle parapets, with Kaiba unleashing the fused form of his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Even with this, Kaiba is once again on the cusp of defeat, until he places his own life on danger by balancing on the edge of the turret, forcing Yugi into a moral corner. Dark Yugi nearly kills Kaiba, but Yugi forces him to forfeit the game in fear of killing his opponent. Kaiba goes on to duel Pegasus, but is overcome by the power of his Millennium Eye and is defeated. Pegasus gives Seto Kaiba the Mind Card Penalty Game, sealing his soul into a card, but when Dark Yugi defeats Pegasus in a Shadow Game during the final round of the tournament, the Kaiba brothers are both freed from their Penalty Games. Feeling indebted to Yugi and his friends for saving his older brother, Mokuba suggests that Kaiba should let them ride in their private helicopter, in which Kaiba begrudgingly submits. In the anime, the above plot points are similar, but since Death-T never happened in the manga, Kaiba never went into a coma and as a result, the plot of the anime was greatly altered. Instead, he leaves Kaiba Corporation in the hands of Mokuba to "find himself." Pegasus' armed henchman find him at a vacation house and he escapes death by jumping out of a window with his briefcase. Subsequently, his deck is stolen and used by the Death Imitator (Ghost Kaiba in the English anime). After Kaiba infiltrates his own mansion overrun by Pegasus' guards, he infects the Blue-Eyes White Dragon with a virus using his supercomputer, helping Dark Yugi win the duel against the obese Death Imitator. Shortly afterwards, he escapes being caught by Pegasus' guards and steals his own helicopter, proceeding to Duelist Kingdom and intending to defeat Pegasus using the new Duel Disk system. The reasoning is the same as the manga, however, details contradict somewhat as the anime uses dueling arenas which requires the duelists to stand more or less the same distance from each other as the Duel Disks. After meeting up with Yugi and his friends, Kaiba regains his deck and briefly battles Jonouchi, who is angry about Kaiba heading to Pegasus's Castle without earning ten Star Chips. Kaiba easily beats Jonouchi using his new dueling system, and proceeds to Pegasus's castle, where he disarms and holds Saruwatari at gunpoint so he can lead him to Pegasus, but Saruwatari steps on an alarm and forces Kaiba to run. Meeting Pegasus in a dungeon where he's holding Mokuba, Pegasus subjects Mokuba to a Mind Card Penalty Game (without playing a game with him first, contradicting the manga's rules about Penalty Games), and forces him to duel Yugi. The events afterwards concerning Kaiba are more or less the same as the manga, with some missing scenes and references to Death-T being removed.

Battle City
In the Battle City arc, Kaiba is summoned to the Domino City museum by Egyptologist Ishizu Ishtar, Kaiba is shown the ancient stone tablet that depicts a battle between what appears to be his past self and the Pharaoh. Although Kaiba does not fully believe Ishizu Ishtar's tale about Yugi being a Pharaoh or that the concept of Duel Monsters was based on an ancient Shadow Game, he is interested in her tale of the God Cards – three powerful one-of-a-kind cards that Pegasus had entrusted to her. Two, however, were already stolen by her brother Marik and his Ghouls organization, and she gives the third – God of Obelisk – to Kaiba, encouraging him to hold a tournament of his own to lure in Marik and his organization of the gaming underworld, who he views as counterfeiting scum that deserve to be crushed. Seeking to obtain the remaining two God Cards for himself and eliminating the organization of bootleggers, Kaiba agrees, and begins his "Battle City" competition, which Yugi Mutou and Katsuya Jonouchi become participants in. During the tournament, Kaiba defeats his opponents using the God of Obelisk card, while Yugi wins his own God card, Saint Dragon of Osiris.. Eventually, Kaiba teams up with Dark Yugi to rescue Mokuba and Yugi's friends from the clutches of Marik and his deadly games. Afterward, Yugi, Kaiba and Jonouchi enter the finals, unaware that Marik has made a deal with Dark Bakura, and he, along with Marik and Marik's stepbrother Rishid, are registered as well. During his battle in the finals, Kaiba duels Ishizu herself. After being sent a vision by Marik's Millennium Rod, the same Millennium Item that his past self had owned, Kaiba forgoes his originally desired strategy of using God of Obelisk to defeat her and sacrifices it to summon the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which was his past-life's Monster Spirit in the battle against the Pharaoh. With the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Kaiba manages to cheat destiny and trump Ishizu's prophecy of defeat and claim victory.

Kaiba faces Dark Yugi in the semifinals, and the two unleash their God Cards against the other. When the two finally attack each other, they each receive a vision of their past selves battling. Encouraged by the vision, Dark Yugi manages to defeat Kaiba and go on to the final battle against Dark Marik. Although initially disgusted over his loss and determined to blow up the Alcatraz Tower the finals were being held on, Kaiba is convinced by Ishizu and Mokuba to stay and watch the battle between Dark Yugi and Dark Marik. Kaiba gives Yugi the card Fiend Sanctuary prior to the duel, and with it, Dark Yugi is able to hold off the attacks of Dark Marik's Sun Dragon Ra and defeat him in his Shadow Game. The entire group escapes the island before it explodes afterward, and Seto and Mokuba both leave to America to fulfill their dream of building a chain of Kaiba Lands for unfortunate children.

Additional anime-only story arcs
Kaiba departed the original manga storyline at the conclusion of the Battle City story arc and was not seen again (until the final chapter). However, the anime added several additional story arcs featuring the character (including one specifically centered around him), and incorporated him into the events of the manga's final storyline, "Millennium World," which he played no role in originally. During the Duelist Kingdom arc, a subplot is introduced in which the Big Five plot to overthrow Kaiba with the help of Pegasus and take control of the company. In the manga, Kaiba fired the five men – the second series anime, however, expanded on the story to create an additional arc that formed the first half of the show's third season.

Shortly after his return from the Duelist Kingdom, the Big Five attempt to appease an outraged Kaiba by revealing that they have finalized his virtual reality game software, and invite him to test it out for himself. However, this was another attempt to do away with Kaiba, but Yugi and his friends manage to rescue him. The Big Five log into the virtual world in an attempt to stop them from escaping, but they are defeated in a duel, and their own minds became trapped in the virtual reality program. Some time later, in the midst of the Battle City tournament, the Big Five's digital consciousnesses are discovered stranded in cyberspace by a mysterious boy named Noah, who recruits them for a revenge campaign against Kaiba. The craft taking the Battle City duelists to KaibaCorp Island for the finals is hijacked by Noah, who then traps Kaiba, Yugi and several of Yugi's friends in his own rendering of the Virtual World, forcing them to duel the Big Five.

As Yugi and his friends defeat the Big Five, Kaiba's past is revealed (see above), and Noah admits to being Gozaburo Kaiba's biological son, and claims his mind exists as a computer program after he was fatally wounded as a child and later digitized. Although Kaiba ignores Noah's claims and duels him, Mokuba is more sympathetic as Noah's blighting by Gozaburo, who began to neglect Noah and breed Kaiba as his new heir. After Noah is defeated, Gozaburo reveals himself as alive and inside the Virtual World, and sets a series of orbital missiles to launch and destroy the world. While Kaiba stops Gozaburo, a reformed Noah reprograms on of the satellites to attack the main computer database and helps Yugi and his friends escape. Afterward, the anime continues on to the Battle City finals.

In Season 4 of the anime, Kaiba, along with Jonouchi and Yugi, is one of three duelists chosen to fight the Atlantean King Dartz. During the season, Kaiba meets Amelda, an orphan whose brother and parents were killed by KaibaCorp-owned military forces under Gozaburo Kaiba's command. Due to his love for his brother, Kaiba becomes sympathetic to Amelda and carries his soul-less body to safety after their duel. Kaiba and Dark Yugi eventually duel Dartz, and although Kaiba loses, Dark Yugi defeats Dartz and Kaiba is restored, taking part in the battle against the Great Leviathan.

In the first half of Season 5, KaibaCorp's stock prices are at an all-time low as a result of a failed takeover by Dartz, and when Kaiba hosts a tournament to restore the company's reputation, Zigfried von Schroeder infiltrates it and hacks Kaiba's computer systems. Catching Zigfried, Kaiba dispatches him a duel. However, Zigfried has his brother Leon duel Yugi in the finals. During the duel, Zigfried tricks Leon into activating Golden Castle of Stromberg, releasing a computer virus into Kaiba's system and forcing Leon to attack and thus forcing his hand. However, Yugi prevails while Kaiba, who anticipating such a plan, has already had his computer systems backed up.

Millennium World
Seto Kaiba's only appearance in the original manga version of the Millennium World arc is a small cameo in the last chapter in the series, where modern day Seto Kaiba makes a brief appearance overlooking Yugi and his companions watching the temple that housed the Ceremonial Battle and the Millennium Items crumble.

Although Seto Kaiba does not take part in the Shadow RPG during the Millennium World arc of the manga, in the anime, Dark Bakura gives him the Millennium Eye, which begins to show Kaiba visions and convinces him to fly to Egypt to determine if they are real or not. During the final battle, Kaiba summons his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, shown in the anime as a fusion between his own spirit, that of Kisara, and that of Priest Seto. He is able to hold his ground against Zorc, something that even the three Gods Spirits were unable to do. (Zorc later explains that the Blue-Eyes White Dragon is the "ultimate creature of light," and when pitted against Zorc – "the ultimate creature of darkness" – its power is greater than any other force on earth.) In the original Japanese anime, Kaiba eventually does acknowledge his past and the events that occurred in the Memory World Shadow RPG.

Yu-Gi-Oh! (1999 film)
Seto Kaiba is the main antagonist of the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie, which was produced by Toei Animation in 1999, appearing to take place some time after the Toei anime's Death-T arc. In this film, Kaiba, who learns about Shougo Aoyama's Red-Eyes Black Dragon, organizes a tournament where strong duelists are invited - and attendance is mandatory. Shougo and Yugi Muto are later chased down and roughed up by Kaiba's henchmen from KaibaCorp, with Kaiba's henchmen overpowering both of them and stealing Yugi's Millennium Puzzle. Now Yugi must enter Kaiba's tournament and show Shougo that one can have both the potential and the power to become a true Duelist.

Seto Kaiba retains his brown hair from the manga instead of the green hair he had in the 1998 anime. His design in this film seems to be inspired by his appearance in the Duelist Kingdom arc of the manga, and he also seems to be using a prototype version of the Duel Disk system during his battle with Dark Yugi. His duel with Dark Yugi appears to be loosely based off their battle in Duelist Kingdom, although instead of the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, he uses a new card called Wicked Chain, which connnects his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons into a completely different, yet similar monster. When Dark Yugi fuses Red-Eyes Black Dragon with Meteor Dragon to form Meteor B. Dragon, Kaiba is defeated. After the game, Kaiba tells Yugi that their battle isn't over yet, informing Yugi that he is the only one in the world worth fighting as he leaves the arena.

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: The Pyramid of Light
Kaiba makes an appearance in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: The Pyramid of Light, which is not canon to the manga and is of disputed canon to the second series anime.

In the wake of his defeat at the Battle City Tournament, Seto began to suggest a means of defeating the three Egyptian God Cards that Yugi now holds, in order to defeat him and reclaim his title as world champion. His quest led him to Pegasus's island (which is not Duelist Kingdom, they are visually distinct from one another), theorizing that Pegasus would not have created the Egyptian God Cards without creating some means of destroying them. Wagering his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons against the lone mysterious card that Pegasus promised him, Kaiba succeeded in winning their duel, only to find two cards within Pegasus's deck that could accomplish what he sought – despite Pegasus's protestations that there should only have been one.

Kaiba proceeded to challenge Yugi to yet another duel in his Duel Dome, and put the first of the two cards into play – the enigmatic "Pyramid of Light," which prevented the Egyptian God Cards from participating in the battle. As the duel proceeded, however, it was revealed that Kaiba had been used as a puppet for the ancient Egyptian sorcerer, Anubis, who had placed the Pyramid of Light card in Pegasus's deck. The Pyramid's powers were draining the lifeforces of Yugi and Kaiba as the duel progressed, eventually resurrecting Anubis, who dispatched Kaiba and took his place in the duel. With Kaiba's aid, however, Yugi put the second mighty card into play – the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, able to destroy any card in play. The Shining Dragon destroyed the Pyramid of Light, and later wiped out Anubis.

Appearances in other media
Though not seen much in the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX series that takes place in the second series anime universe (not canon to the original manga), Kaiba is referred as the one who owns and started Duel Academy (Duel Academia) and named the dormitories personally. He has made several appearances, the first being when he makes a bet on his ownership of the school. Bold and having full confidence in the duelist representing Duel Academy, Chazz Princeton, Kaiba agrees to an unfair set of stipulations that place Chazz at a great disadvantage. Chazz prevails despite such odds, and Kaiba is unsurprised due to Chazz being a student of the Academy. Another few times were in flashbacks, once where Jaden remembers a competition he entered that was held by the KaibaCorp and another when a reporter sneaks into Duel Academy. He is also briefly shown while Pegasus was telling Aster Phoenix who his favourite top 5 duelists are with Yugi first and Kaiba being the second. The Duel Spirit Kaibaman also appears, and has the same voice and deck as Kaiba, in addition to resembling him and reportedly being designed by him, although Kaibaman's personality is more benevolent. Kaiba's only appearance in person comes when Sartorius visits him to request the use of his Kaiba Land amusement park. Kaiba's character design in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is nearly identical to his original appearance, although his facial structure is changed subtly. Due to the fact he is twenty-five years old, Sartorius makes an inside joke about his teenage appearance. Kaiba indicates he knows about the Society of Light, although such knowledge is not expanded upon. Kaiba has not made any other appearance since, though it has been shown that he is the only surviving citizen of Trueman's invasion in Domino City.

The Kaiba Dome is seen often in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's (not canon to the original manga). His company Kaiba Corp is responsible for turning Domino City into New Domino City. His name is mention by a guard,that tries to stop Crow from talking to Pierson.

Kaiba also appears in some of the Yu-Gi-Oh! video games as an opponent which the player can duel (or play as).

Notable Dueling Cards


Kaiba's signature Magic & Wizards cards are his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons and the fusion monster formed from the three dragons, the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. In the manga, he acquired these three dragons through blackmail and extortion. At multiple times, he has shown the ability to draw the card whenever needed, and sometimes even draws all three at once. Summoning a Blue-Eyes for a final assault is Kaiba's trademark victory move. To this end, he also utilizes a wide variety of support cards to power up the Blue-Eyes and make it easier to summon. However, he does utilize other cards in his deck.

During Battle City, as well as focusing on his Blue Eyes White Dragons Kaiba introduces to his deck several Machines, especially Cyber Jar and the XYZ series. After Battle City, Kaiba's deck features even more Dragon-type cards to complement his Blue-Eyes, including Thunder Dragon and Spear Dragon. He eventually adapts to a Dimension strategy of removing his cards from play, then returning them with Dimension Fusion/Return From the Different Dimension for a final assault. However, his Blue-Eyes still serves as his trump card. He also had the God Card, God of Obelisk (Obelisk the Tormentor in the English OCG), given to him by Ishizu Ishtar, but lost it to Yugi in the semi-finals of Battle City.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Kaibaman's deck, based on Kaiba's own, focuses on summoning and protecting the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. In particular, the card representing Kaibaman himself can be instantly sacrificed to summon a Blue Eyes from his hand.