Seto Kaiba

Seto Kaiba is one of the main characters of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime.

Seto is the older brother of Mokuba and the modern-day reincarnation of Priest Seto, himself the original keeper of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Adopted into the Kaiba family as an orphan, Kaiba is at the helm of the world’s largest multi-national gaming conglomerate, KaibaCorp, serving as its majority owner and CEO. An intellectually gifted and innovative computer programmer, engineer, and inventor during his youth, he invented virtual software for playing video games as a young child prodigy. Nonetheless, an estranged relationship with his stepfather and outsmarting him auspiciously led the young Seto towards a seamless corporate takeover of KaibaCorp. With access to vast wealth, technological resources, and a wellspring of scientific and business expertise, Kaiba seeks to expand Kaiba Corp's business operations not just across Domino City but the entire world. A competitive businessman and cutthroat investor, Kaiba is feared throughout the business world; earning him the hospitality and respect that he needs from his peers and rivals. Kaiba also seeks to become the world's greatest player in Duel Monsters, to accomplish this goal, he must defeat his arch-rival, Yugi Muto.

Kaiba is largely considered an anti-hero, as his motives are usually egocentric and his personality traits are selfish and arrogant, but he does sometimes help Yugi and his friends if it’s in his best interest (although there are a few occasions where he helps Yugi when faced with a common enemy).

Among one of the recurring plots is Seto Kaiba being forced to deal with either people adversely affected by Gozaburo Kaiba's actions, wanting to take their revenge on Seto himself, or people from within KaibaCorp attempting to take over the company.

Appearance
His usual outfit from the second series anime consists of a long white sleeveless KaibaCorp-designed coat featuring 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. He often wears a KaibaCorp Duel Disk on his left arm.

In his initial appearance and his first loss to Yami Yugi, he wears a blue standard Domino High School uniform.

During the events of the Duelist Kingdom, he wears a long indigo blue trenchcoat with a dark teal long sleeved button shirt with an extended collar, a matching pants with a white belt on his waist and black shoes. He later wears this outfit during the events of the Legendary Hero.

Before wearing his usual outfit and he was given the Obelisk The Tormentor by Ishizu Ishtar, his long trenchcoat becomes purple and his teal button shirt and pants are replaced with a black turtleneck and a matching pants and dons a steel wristbands in both of his wrist.

In the first series anime, Kaiba has green hair, while in the manga, Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh! movie, and the second series, ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters'', Kaiba has brown hair. Kaiba's character design in ''Yu-Gi-Oh! GX'' anime is nearly identical to his original appearance, although his facial structure is changed subtly.

Personality
In the original Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba omits honorifics and has a "rude" pattern of speech. Kaiba uses the word "ore" to mean "I" instead of boku or watashi; ore is a boastful way to say "I" in Japanese. Kaiba usually calls Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey Wheeler) names, such as "bonkotsu" (mediocre), "make-inu" (pathetic dog, loser), "uma no hone" (a nobody), and "zako" (insignificant person, weakling). This name calling was carried over to the dub.

In the English version, Kaiba plays as an arch-rival to Yami Yugi and appears to have a certain snobbish contempt for Yugi's group of friends, namely Joey Wheeler; he disparagingly refers to them constantly with derisive nicknames such as "the nerd herd", "the dweeb patrol", or "the geek squad". At one point, he kept running into them during Waking the Dragons, and quipped "Great. Dork fest continues." In the Japanese version, he is just civil towards them he does trust them at certain degree. He's sarcastic, rude, usually selfish and power-lusting, no-nonsense and down-to-earth, and somewhat narcissistic, while he may seem very realistic, but, as Atem has said so multiple times, he can be very clueless. Plus, he is fairly condescending and scathing to everyone, with the exception of Mokuba, the only person he is consistently shown to treat with love and care. However, it is stated by Mokuba ever since being adopted by Gozaburo, Kaiba has rarely smiled, if at all. Mokuba has also noted he's become much colder than he used to be. Despite this, Kaiba still has strong brotherly instincts for Mokuba and will put his life in danger in a heart beat to safeguard Mokuba's life.

Apart from Mokuba, Kaiba exhibits a compassion for children — especially orphans (as he himself was one and knew what it felt like). Kaiba also threw himself between Zorc and 2 Egyptian children, thus enabling them to make a getaway. At various points during the series, he opens up momentarily, performing kind acts, though always covering them up with sarcasm, and denying them if asked. These occurrences increase in frequency towards the later series. Aside from that, Kaiba maintains a conservative, stiff, and uptight exterior.

Although Kaiba may seem very unkind toward his brother Mokuba, he has a brotherly love for him. When their adoptive brother Noah had hypnotized Mokuba into not remembering him and thinking Noah was his real brother, Kaiba revealed how much he cared about him to try to make him remember; in one Season 1 episode of the second series anime, after Pegasus is defeated, Kaiba tells Yugi that Mokuba "means everything to me". This is shown when Kaiba risks his own life by standing on a ledge to win the Duel against Yugi so that he can get to Pegasus to save Mokuba. Even when Kaiba preaches that no one gets away with trying to take over his company, he risks KaibaCorp when Dueling Noah for Mokuba.

Kaiba has also had moments of selflessness, such as when he saved Téa from Marik's Rare Hunter without there being any incentive for him to do so.

Kaiba is known for his snobbery and sense of superiority over others, as his motives are usually ruthless and rapacious, and his personality traits are selfish as he would do almost anything to gain power, wealth, respect, glory and supremacy. As a character, Kaiba is known for displaying a conservative, ruthless, and abrasive demeanor, especially looking down towards people whom he considers socially contemptible or throwing blunt insults and wisecracks towards rival duelists and their dueling abilities to whom he considers to be strategically inferior opponents. Like the Pharaoh, pride is Kaiba's strength and weakness; he never backs down from a challenge and gives everything he can in a Duel. This results him in having a sense of superiority, making it extremely difficult to earn his respect especially towards people he considers beneath him, and causes him to look down on and treat others as inferior until Kaiba considers them his equal. This gives him difficulty when forced to rely on others and work as a team. His pride in himself and his accomplishments as an individual are prominent character traits that form a part of his character throughout the series, and he reacts harshly to those who threaten or infringe on it (although it is toned down slightly towards the end of the series).

In addition, Kaiba has expressed dislike and displeasure towards other people using his cards, namely his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" (his favorite and signature card; notably, he uses its motif to decorate a large portion of his personal effects - e.g., Kaiba Land, his jet, and his clothing). This is shown in Yu-Gi-Oh! - Episode 001, when he rips up Solomon Muto's Blue-Eyes White Dragon after winning it so that it could never be used against him, and also in Yu-Gi-Oh! - Episode 136 when Kaiba becomes very angry when he finds out about Joey using his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" in their Duel. Kaiba goes so far as to attack Joey's "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" with his own, destroying both in the process, to prevent Joey from using it for another turn. (He even says angrily, "I'm the only one with the skills necessary to wield a Blue-Eyes!" while doing so.) He also despises Pegasus' "Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon", saying it strips the original of all its pride. According to Takahashi, Kaiba's obsession with the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" stems from the feelings between Kisara (the girl whose Ka housed the Blue-Eyes) and his ancient Egyptian incarnate, Priest Seto. This may also be due to Kaiba's affinity for Dragon-Type monsters.[6] More likely than anything would be it having to do with wanting to have the strongest Deck possible out of any Duelist as part of his domination motif, as he went through great lengths to acquire the three copies he presently has.

One of Seto's recurring traits is his absolute refusal to believe in the magic powers that is often used in the series. Later on, during sagas like Waking the Dragons, he openly admits to believing in all the supernatural events occurring around him, instead of just ignorantly saying they don't exist as he always does (although it is possible that he thinks that it's science instead of magic, and doesn't hesitate to do something about it). However, the closest in the dub that Kaiba has come to this is "Maybe there is some truth to this junk" in the final episodes; however, when questioned by Joey, he quickly denies having said such a thing.

In the Japanese version, while Kaiba does not take it very well, he is much more accepting of the faith and magic that occurs. In the Doma arc, he told Alister he should show him the power of a "true Duelist" and of the "Chosen One", and also openly accepted the vision he and Yami Yugi had after their Egyptian Gods were destroyed, as well as the fact that their battle was destined over the span of 3000 years. During the Duel against Dartz, Kaiba destroyed the "Mirror Knight Token" after they had taken the form of Yugi, Pegasus, Joey, and Mai because of his belief if they were true Duelists, they would be willing to allow themselves to be destroyed in order to save the world, while in the dub, Kaiba believed Dartz manipulated the holograms to resemble their friends in order to weaken their resolve. Although there are some instances where Kaiba is a believer in both the Japanese and dub. One such example would be during his final turn against Zigfried von Schroeder when he predicted he would draw exactly the spell cards he would need to defeat Zigfried, despite initially only having one card in his hand.

Understandably, Kaiba gains a lot of contempt and disdain from virtually every single person he knows (with the exception of Mokuba) - mostly Joey, Tristan and Tea in particular. Yugi constantly holds out hope for him, as does Yugi's other self Yami. Though Yami himself finds Kaiba's condescending attitude and arrogance quite infuriating. As was shown on the times they've been forced to Duel together as a team. Kaiba, for the most part, could not care less about what they think about him and returns the contempt in kind.

In the Memory World arc Kaiba's past self, Priest Seto, is introduced. Priest Seto is depicted as being less antagonistic than modern-day Kaiba, and is portrayed as being very loyal with a strong sense of justice. However, he maintains Kaiba's pride and intelligent mind.

Despite Kaiba's self-centered, snobbish, and elitist personality, he remains an intrinsically obstinate, astute, disciplined and conscientious individual who has a concern for human ethics throughout the entire anime series. He exhibits ethical and morally upright principles in that he is against stealing. Though his plans are often vengeful and Machiavellian, notably vindictive as he sees revenge as a way to get even especially when seeing the negative side of his dueling defeats inflicted by his arch-rival Yami Yugi. Nonetheless, he is a rational, intelligent, and perspicacious person who has a vast belief that hard work and determination is what gets you ahead in life, not stealing at the expense of others to advance your situation. As such, he is disgusted by Zigfried and Noah, calling them pathetic and not worth living up to his company because they were planning on stealing his works to take his company instead of earning it through the trials and tribulations that he went through.

Kaiba is also known for his perfectionist mindset and for his disdain of mediocrity as an acceptable standard while maintaining high standards of excellence; whether if its honing his dueling skills or maintaining the quality of of his technology. In every duel, he punctiliously implements an array of well executed high power dueling strategies into giving his opponents a hard time to strategically overpower him. He also remains punctilious in the Duel Disks he developed as he would use them even when Duel Rings are nearby by plugging it into the Duel Ring's hologram projector so any card he plays on his Duel Disk is displayed on the Duel Ring instead of just using the Duel Ring.

During the Battle City arc, Seto's main goal is defeating Yugi in a Duel. However, when he lost, he decided on a new path, rather an old one, of building Kaiba Land all around the world. However, he vowed his rivalry with Yugi is far from over, even though they never had an on-screen Duel after this. At some point, Kaiba through his philanthropic hospitality and passion for Duel Monsters established the Central Duel Academy, a private educational institution to train the next generation of up and coming duelists to accomplish this goal.

Abilities
Throughout the series, Kaiba has proven himself one of the most accomplished and formidable businessman in the world. A child prodigy and polymorphic genius, he excels at virtually any skill or area of study he applies himself to. With natural aptitude and raw talent, he has both successful reinvented and ran his world-wide cooperation while also pursued his passion for games, having spent years as an undefeated world champion in various games including Duel Monsters and chess. In addition to his shrewd business acumen and gaming aptitude, while having no known degrees, Kaiba is incredibly skilled with science and technology, most noticeably programming and engineering. He specializes mainly in computer software programming and building cutting edge technological software and hardware such as the development of KaibaCorp's high-tech Duel Disks and advanced Solid Vision technology. He is very advanced hacker, skillfully making his way through the Duelist Kingdom network. He is also very athletic, able to nimbly land from high jumps and a proficient hand-to-hand combat, easily defeating some of Pegasus' elite guards while showing deceptive raw strength.

Trivia

 * The song "You're Not Me" is based on Kaiba.