Yu-Gi-Oh!: Happy Birthday, Kaiba Seto!!

🎲Happy Birthday, Kaiba Seto!🎲

Now is Kaiba Seto's turn for a little analysis, I have always intended it but kept delaying it, last year I was still in the dumps about the loss of Kazuki Takahashi.

I will summarize, Kaiba Seto to me was and is a character went from one my favourites to feel pretty neutral, I don't dislike him and his writing is great, however I will say that I think he is one of the most important and influencial characters in the series as well in the franchise itself.

Kaiba's character introduction is very interesting, I do like these kind of introductions in a story to be honest, when you read the two chapter when he was introduced (volume 2, chapter 9-10), when you think through about this scene in particular, it sounded like he came to the store with a different purpose since it seemed like it was the first time, also Kaiba initiated talking with Yugi first and treated as if the others didn't exist...

And later with Mokuba introduction, Death-T arc, the lengths that he goes to get BEWD as well to be the best gamer, to prove himself as such, he must have heard rumors of Yugi and Dark Yugi, as well tracking down the other BEWD, by this time I would say Kaiba already saw Yugi as a rival even before meeting Dark Yugi.

Before getting to the highlights of his character development and particular details about his character, this one of those, Kaiba's character bases on a real person, a random person that the mangaka's friend met behaved in similar manner as seen in this panel above, said something along the lines "we'll talk once you get 1000 cards", Kaiba still has an elitist atitude and kept at it for a long time, even in Dark Side of Dimension, it still hadn't toned down much...

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When you put these scenes together, it's curious the first two panels ensemble is the end of arc of Blue Eyes White Dragon, the last panels ensemble is from the ending of Death-T arc, I wonder if was intentional...to explain why he went insane levels to create Death-T and the penalty game was replicated from his experience of his first penalty game fro Dark Yugi, if we think about it, Dark Yugi went too far with "sensation of death" illusion as penalty game to a point that became nightmares, nightmares aren't easy to recover from, in fact quite hard...it further strengthened his own traumas...that "losing means death", which is why his obsession with winning among other things.

I won't explain his past a 2nd time, since I already did on Death-T arc in 3 parts analysis, the main point, this is from Mokuba perspective, Kaiba at the beginning since him and Mokuba were sent to the orphanage, Seto was focused on survival to protect himself and his little brother Mokuba, Kaiba Gozaburo's abusive "education, reinforced the belief of winning is survival, Seto who is very vengeful, he outsmarted his foster father and took over the company and became obsessed in being the best in games...I think the time when his parents were still alive, I am pretty sure he loved games genuinely like Yugi still does nowadays, but circumstances made obsessed with games related to winning, in a way was a refuge and it wasn't...it became complicated feelings.

This penalty game on Kaiba is different from all the others that Dark Yugi has made, it was more or less force Kaiba to reconstruct himself by "removing" the roots that was making acting a little too extreme, even Dark Yugi does express in his face that he has some regret over his previous penalty game, later he does have more after fighting Pegasus (because of "Dark Intelligence" in the millennium items), it was a little careful, it was heavy but careful.

Even after Seto got out of his trance/coma, he wasn't fully "reconstructed" yet, since there was still his "missing piece", being Mokuba, speaking of which...

If you noticed between ending of Dark Yugi VS Mokuba is very similar to this trance vision Seto has during the duel against Dark Yugi in Duelist Kingdom, in another words he saw Dark Yugi saving his little brother from Seto's mistake in putting through "sensation of death", the whole of him being in panic and Seto inner child looking at him in disapproval, I will say, Kazuki Takahashi did a splendid job in showing Seto's guilt, probably what he feels most guilty about, it's not just regret, he is carrying around that very heavy guilt.

Even though Kaiba is a character whose growth is about a lots of steps forward with a few steps back, here we see, deep down we see Kaiba knows that the almost "suicide attempt" that he did in Duelist Kingdom was kinda stupid (because if Mokuba was saved by Dark Yugi and Honda + yami bakura, he wouldn't want to Mokuba wake up if he was saved by Dark Yugi knowing his big brother commited suicide), for him changing his mind to help Dark Yugi (eventually Yugi as well), because deep down Seto is grateful to Yugi from stopping him of commiting suicide, now he is willing to help so that someone else won't do the same what he almost did...

If we notice, this is the only time Seto mentions his bioligical parents and is very vague and refer to his uncle and aunt as filthy adults, and Gozaburo as his stepfather of "monster of a father", he is aware that he was quite abusive, the reason he might mention vaguely his parents to himself, probably is a block and causes him too much grief, like memories locked in a chest very tightly, not to be touched...then all the other ones that came, in these panels ensembles is the lots of steps forwards with few steps back.

Seto Kaiba took a long road of growth, a very long one, lots of steps forward with few steps back due to his stubborness, extremely prideful, vengeful, big ego, extremely competitive to a point of obsession with his his rivals, specifically Dark Yugi/Atem...yet has hidden soft side that shows to Mokuba mostly and only a little to Yugi (not much to Dark Yugi/Atem, this one is obsessively competitive with), maybe because Yugi's personality and his love for games reminds him of his younger self before losing his parents and little of Mokuba, perhaps...Yugi is also someone he highly respects as gamer and rival, but is different from Dark Yugi, I may write about this one day more...