Characters / Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series Main Characters

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General Tropes

• Adaptational Dumbass: They lack far more common sense than they do in their respective series. Yugi and Kaiba are the least dumbest of the gang, but even they fall victim to the Idiot Ball numerous times.
• Adaptational Jerkass: They're much more mean and selfish than how they are in the original anime. Even Kaiba, who was already a huge jerk in the original.
• Adaptational Wimp: They're a lot less competent than their original counterparts.
• Ambiguously Bi: Most of them generally prefer those on the opposite sex but provide a lot of subtext indicating they have no problem with the same sex either. So far the only exceptions are Téa (who has yet to display any attraction towards another woman) and Yami (who openly admits to going both ways).
• Character Exaggeration: Traits that were prominent to their original counterparts tend to go up to eleven here such as Téa's firm belief in The Power of Friendship and Kaiba's Jerkass behavior.
• The Ditz: Most of them are pretty dense (especially Tristan and Joey).
• Kick the Dog: When Mai calls them out on leaving her comatose body alone in the same blimp as Melvin, an unrepentant psychopath, they all just assume she's being irrational for no good reason. Especially Yami.
• Vague Age: Their ages, mainly Yugi's, are often the source for various jokes due to the Younger Than They Look/Older Than They Look tropes being in effect quite a lot.

Yugi

Yugi Muto

"You lose automatically unless you're me."

Our protagonist. In the Abridged Series, Yugi shares the most amount of ever-so-coveted screen time with Yami. His story plays out pretty much the same as it normally does, except with more card games and snarkiness.

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• Adaptational Dumbass: Though nowhere near as much as the rest of the main characters, Yugi still falls victim to bouts of blatant gullibility, forgetfulness, and jumping to rather absurd conclusions such as thinking Yami, a spirit, is a vampire because he lacks a reflection.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Whereas canon Yugi was a Nice Guy and an All-Loving Hero, Abridged Yugi is more sarcastic and self-centered, abuses Bakura as much as everybody else does, has no problems with robbing people who he thinks are dead, and repeatedly calls Kaiba a loser for never defeating him in Duel Monsters.
• Ambiguously Bi: While he mainly displays Single-Target Sexuality to Téa, his relationship with Yami eventually evolves into something much deeper than strictly platonic with much of their conversations coming across as two romantic partners.
• Anime Hair: His hair is noted to be so crazy, he has enough to cover Joey's lack of it when Anime Hair is needed to enter Duelist Kingdom.
• Anti-Hero: Much less than Yami. He's quite often a jerk, even to his friends, and can be very bitter and cynical at times but he's really a good guy deep down.
• Berserk Button: He has two: Don't ever call him whack and never say that card games are a waste of time, especially for the latter.
• Character Catchphrase: "Super Special Awesome" in the early episodes and "Let Me Get This Straight..."
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Often fills this role for most of the characters in the series (especially Yami, Téa, and Tristan).
• Deadpan Snarker: Not quite as much as other characters, though, but as most characters in this series are intensely snarky, that doesn't say much.
• Disappeared Dad: When Grandpa delivers the package from Pegasus about Season Four's Filler Arc, he initially claims that Yugi's father asked him to deliver it.
  Yugi: My father was here?!
  Grandpa: Oh no, my mistake. It was the mailman. You know, someone you actually see on a regular basis. I get those two mixed up sometimes.
• Everyone Has Standards: He abhors slavery of humans and refuses to let Joey and Tristan keep people as pets until they repeatedly demand it.
• Hipster: Briefly parodied.
  Yugi: I'm Yugi Moto, and I was playing card games before it was cool.
• Inconsistent Spelling: In credits and other such material, his surname tends to be written as "Moto", which is consistent with how it's pronounced in the English dub, but in both the English and the original Japanese versions, it's spelled "Muto".
• It's All About Me: Acknowledges his role as the main character but sometimes lets it get out of hand like not allowing anyone to have more screen time than him.
• Kid with the Leash: Currently the page quote (for a very good reason).
  Yami: Couldn't I just mind-crush him?
  Yugi: You can't fix all your problems by mind-crushing people!
  Yami: Oh, come on! Just one little mind-crush, it'll barely hurt him.
  Yugi: No! Bad pharaoh! No mind-crush!
• Like an Old Married Couple: He shares this dynamic with Yami which Season 3 and especially Season 4 had played up significantly, taking away Ho Yay subtext and turning it into plain old text.
• Limited Wardrobe: He is rarely ever seen wearing anything other than his school uniform which gets lampshaded in episode 22 where he wonders if anybody's going to notice that he's not wearing his uniform.
• Meta Guy: Starting halfway through Season 2, he's often the first to complain about plot holes or nonsensical plans. A striking example is when he acknowledges the undertones of the speech delivered by Joey about how the abridged series has introduced many to the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise and he has the fanbase by his side:
  Yugi: This is so meta.
• Mundane Utility: Uses the Millennium Puzzle as a fashion accessory and visits the Pharaoh's soul room when he gets bored.
• Oblivious to Love: Depending on Rule of Funny, he doesn't notice whenever Téa tries to hit on him despite being equally attracted to her. This is especially apparent when she's possessed by Crump and constantly making sexual advances on him.
• Older Than They Look: A small Running Gag throughout the series is people and Yugi himself pointing out that he's supposed to be 16 but instead looks like a 10-year-old. Not helping is that he apparently has yet to hit puberty despite his age.
• Only Sane by Comparison: Yugi is most certainly a jerk who can be quite idiotic at times but he's also the only one out of the main cast not to have a consistently negative personality trait like Tristan and Joey's idiocy, Yami's jerkassery, Teá's lust and obsession over friendship, Kaiba's enormous ego and so on.
• Parental Abandonment: When Rebecca returns in Season Four, he doesn't recognize her. When he's informed that she's someone from his past that he hasn't seen in a long time, his first guess is a bit off.
  Yugi: Are you my parents?!
  • See also Disappeared Dad above.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: Occasionally shown to have this for the Dark Magician Girl.
• Put on a Bus: His soul is taken by the Seal of Orichalcos in Episode 71 .
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Yes, Yugi of all people gave this out to Rebecca in episode 70, in response to her saying Professor Hawkins doesn't have time to waste with children's card games. It took Rebecca changing the subject quickly for him to calm down. Even more scary is that nobody else is ever shown having this kind of ability.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The more reasonable and compassionate Blue Oni to Yami's Red Oni.
• Robbing the Dead: He insists that this is technically what he did by taking the Orichalcos stone that "Bro" was wearing after the latter seemingly died.
• Sharing a Body: Again, with Yami.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Dark Magician Girl aside, Yugi never seems to express romantic interest in anyone except Téa, despite Mai Valentine outright propositioning him in one scene and Rebecca Hawkins and Vivian Wong having obvious crushes on him.
  Yami: Hey Yugi, you gonna hit that?
  Yugi: Mmmm, no.
  Yami: Shame. Damn shame.
• Smoking Is Cool: Averted. He mentions he should quit smoking after running for a relatively short time makes him exhausted.
• Surrounded by Idiots: By virtue of being the Meta Guy and the Only Sane Man, he's this to all his more nonsensical, jerkish friends and allies. That said, he's still prone to their shennanigans.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While he was very blunt and to the point with his annoyance with his friends and how idiotic or annoying their tendencies can be. Come Season 5, he's still blunt, but he's a bit more mindful of what he says around or to his friends.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Shows rather clear hints of anger when Joey asks Yugi if he forgave him for stealing the eyepiece from his Millennium Puzzle in episode 4.
  • As noted above, Yugi's eyes briefly turn red when Rebecca claims that her grandfather doesn't have time for children's card games.
  Yugi: (calmly) The f**k you say?

Yami

Yami Victor Yugi, aka "The Pharaoh" aka "DAN GREEN" aka Atem

"Listen man, you can threaten me all you like, but let's get one thing straight: Nobody, but nobody f**ks with the hair."

The incredibly FABULOUS alter-ego of our protagonist. Yami is not as heroic as he was in the source material, but at the same time he's just as hammy (if not more so.) He's a bastard who Mind Crushes people for arbitrary reasons, but he's not all bad, considering he's one of the heroes.

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• Accent Adaptation: He has an English accent in this version though that doesn't stop him from constantly mocking both Bakuras for their Britishness.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Zig-Zagged. He's a total jerk and shown to be a bit of a tyrant unlike his counterpart from the second anime but it wouldn't be entirely far off with his counterpart from the first anime and early parts of the manga. On the other hand, the original source implied he was always a benevolent ruler to his people, whereas Abridged turned Yami into an evil tyrant who enslaved all of his kingdom.
  • Played straight with his Season 0 Abridged counterpart; while Season 0 Yami was a ruthless Sociopathic Hero who did inflict horrible game penalties to his opponents, he would typically give his opponents a chance to play by the rule, and only go with the game penalties when they started cheating or assaulting him when they realized they were losing. His Abridged Series counterpart, on the other hand, is an Axe-Crazy psychopath who actively tries to kill his opponents through blatantly deadly games while laughing like a maniac and is so evil even the Devil apparently sees him as too creepy.
• Ambiguously Evil: His acts of heroism are usually motivated by selfishness and he treats everyone around him like dirt and/or slaves. They're okay with this since there are always at least two major antagonists even worse than Yami in each season. Taken even further in Season 0 where Yami is a straight-up Superpowered Evil Side who paraphrases famous villains, enjoys murder and has the Michael Myers theme as his Leitmotif.
• Am I Right?: "Hey, Joey. Watapon! Am I right?" - About one of the cards in Kaiba's lame-ass deck when he takes over the duel with Noah.
  • Also:
  Yami: Huh, five men in one body, eh? Sounds like a typical day for Mai Valentine. Am I right?
  Joey: Yug, she's in a coma!
  Yami: Am I right?
  Joey: It's just very inappropriate is all.
  Yami: Yes, but am I right?
  Joey: YUGI!
  Yami: JOEY! ...Am. I. Right?
• Anime Hair: In the second clip show, he attributes it to being struck by lightning.
• Anti-Hero: He loves to Mind Crush people, his reactions range from indifference to joy when Yugi's friends are in danger, and in Season 0 he's completely Ax-Crazy. As with everything else in the series though this is subject to Rule of Funny — when Noah turns his friends to stone he doesn't care until he petrifies Tristan, which horrifies him. And on several other occasions, he shows he does truly care for Yugi, Joey and Téa (Tristan is usually still the Butt-Monkey).
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Up until season 4, he doesn't believe in souls despite being one himself.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Melvin's "Shiny Obelisk" caught his attention so much that he was willing to trade the original and Fiend's Sanctuary (both Kaiba's cards) for it.
• Ax-Crazy: In Season 0, he loves hurting people and revels in violence and chaos.
• Berserk Button: He dislikes it when people talk smack about his "pointy hair."
• Break the Haughty: Losing Yugi's soul in Episode 71 due to his activation of the Seal of Orichalcos reduces him to a crying mess, and Yugi really lays it into him for that decision in Episode 74, pressing him to make a rare genuine apology for being a jerk. And then in Episode 81, Dartz nearly convinces him to off himself to the Orichalcos by pointing out he's living proof of humanity's evil because of how he wasted his second chance at life being an asshole to his friends. Season 4 was an entire season of this.
  Yugi: Oh hey, I guess there was one card you had that I didn't know about. Humility.
• Broken Aesop: He frequently gives out the moral that bullying isn't nice, despite being somewhat of a bully himself. This is obviously Played for Laughs of course.
• Brutal Honesty: During the duel between him and Joey in episode 17, Yami flat out tells Joey that he's a terrible duelist and that he only wins because Yami tells him what to do.
• The Caligula: His rule as Pharaoh. For starters he owned slaves. He started his own holiday - Slavemas - where he forced those slaves to give him what few possessions they owned every year. Even his attendants weren't safe from his dickishness, as he regularly talked down to them and humiliated Priest Seto in particular.
• Character Development: During Season Four, Yami realizes that his dickish attitude towards everyone was uncalled for, and also realizes that he does genuinely love and care for his friends. He even admits that he enjoys spending time with Yugi and loves Téa's Friendship Speeches.
  • This actually sticks come Season Five, instead of going back to Status Quo Is God and being a selfish ass like he was for the first three seasons, Yami actually notes he's enjoying his time with Yugi and the others instead of being in a rush to play card games. He also attempts to be nicer to a kid who clearly knows nothing about how to construct a proper deck or duel and actually skips out on a perfectly good chance to insult Joey, which is something he would have jumped on before. He also has developed a bit of humility, not making as big a deal of his status to anyone when crudely introduced at the tournament at Kaibaland.
• Characterization Marches On: While his hammy, egotistical jerkassery has been a part of his character since the beginning, it's how this ego has been executed changes over time. He is a traditionally cool Deadpan Snarker but starting in Season 3, he becomes a fast-talking, arrogant oddball with a habit of ignoring people.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: He can lapse into this at times which is best exemplified in episode 61 where his kookiness was enough to drive Melvin crazy.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: invoked As fans of the actual series know, his "name" is Yami Yugi but then that just means "Dark Yugi," as in Yugi's alter-ego. His name is not Yami in the main continuity, but he was identified as such in the 4Kids dub, creating a Continuity Snarl when the mystery of his name became a major plot point later in the series. This series just goes with "Yami" and lampshades 4Kids accidentally naming him as such. Season 4 gets around this snarl by having people refer to him as Pharaoh since by that point everyone knows his identity.
  Yami: You can call me Yami.
  Yugi: I thought your name was Ate—
  Yami: Sh! Don't spoil it now!
• Deadpan Snarker: Rivals Bakura and Kaiba as the main source of sarcasm.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: His snobbery can most likely be attributed to being the ruler of an ancient kingdom where he had slaves.
• Depraved Bisexual: Comes off as this, at least in the "What would Yugi do?" video.
  Yami: Silence, slave, or do you want me to yank on your leash again?
  Yugi: Ow, not so tight, Pharoah!
  Yami: That's What She Said. Or he. I could go either way, really. And that is also what she said!
  Yugi: You're so depraved.
  Yami: At least I'm not deprived. Of sex. Like you will be if you don't pipe down, little man!
• Disproportionate Retribution: He delivers this to Kaiba in Season Zero.
  Yami: You took my grandfather's card, so I took your bodyguard's kidneys! I believe that's a fair trade.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Even he doesn't like it when someone offends baby Jesus.
  • He also seems annoyed with Kaiba's potentially racist comments about the skin colors of their Ancient Egyptian counterparts in Episode 59.
  • Despite making several jokes about Mai falling into a coma as a result of Melvin's penalty game, even he was among those who felt her pulling a fast one on Joey and pretending to die from it went way over the line.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Confessing his love to Yugi in the finale for season 4 gave him strength to summon the Egyptian gods and kill the Leviathan.
• He-Man Woman Hater: He despises women and constantly makes jokes at the expense of Mai and Téa. However, he justifies this behaviour in "They Saved Tristan's Brain" by explaining women have always hated and wanted to kill him although this also reveals that he thought Marik and Bakura were women all this time.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: He loves his leather pants.
  Marik: I'm talking about the power to look good in leather!
  Yami: That power belongs to me and me alone! And maybe *NSYNC, but mostly to me!
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath:
  • On Christmas, he sent Marik and his evil Council of Doom a present. A bomb.
  • His season zero counterpart is a full-blown psycho who just seems to like killing the people who hurt Yugi, making him heroic in the loosest possible definition.
    Yami: Hey, Kaiba! You took my Grandfather's card, so I took your bodyguards' kidneys. I believe that's a fair trade.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After Battle City, he dueled Joey so the latter could earn back his Red-Eyes Black Dragon but refused to go easy on Joey and expected it to be a Curb-Stomp Battle. However, Yami actually lost and Joey won because he believed in the heart of the cards just like Yugi told him to, even though Yami admitted afterwards that he was bullshitting when he said to believe in the heart of the cards.
• Horrifying the Horror:
  • His season zero counterpart once went on a blind date with the Devil, who refused to return his calls on the basis that he was too creepy.
  • Said counterpart was subjected to this himself when encountering the sheer wrongness that is Seto Kaiba being a Nice Guy.
• Hypocritical Humor: Yami is very prone to this. For one, he makes a jab at the fact Yami Bakura had the same name as Ryou Bakura despite the fact Yami Yugi himself never objects to people calling him the same name as his host as well as mocking both Bakuras' Britishness even though the abridged series made him British.
• Inelegant Blubbering: After losing Yugi's soul in "The Break-Up", he spends the remainder of the episode trying to explain what happened to Joey while sobbing profusely. This continued into the next episode's opening where he could barely keep it together and the card scroll was replaced with pictures of him crying.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When being called out by Téa for not believing in Joey enough during his duel with Melvin, Yami does a precise phrase in Téa's voice in what she would say in a mocking fashion and says that's what she sounds like. Very harsh, but also kinda true.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As evidenced all over this page, the Pharaoh is a grade-A dick but in the end, he's still a good guy who helps protect Yugi and his friends.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In "Final Deathstination", Marik tries to dissuade Yami from attacking Bakura and ending the duel by having Ryou appear in front of him. Instead of hesitating like he did in the original, Yami willingly attacks him which shocks Odion and Joey.
  • "Episode 58" has him not caring about Joey being knocked unconscious by Melvin's Egyptian god card while simultaneously ranting about how people in his time didn't bother caring about his death. Subverted in the next episode where he suddenly sympathizes with Joey's condition and swears to defeat Melvin to avenge him so maybe Yami does care after all.
• Large Ham: Obviously since in the dub, he's voiced by DAN GREEN.
• Laughing Mad: His Season Zero persona as he's being released by Yugi. He does one hell of an Evil Laugh.
• Leg Focus: A cross he has to bear, apparently.
  Yami: Can I help it [sitting with his legs crossed] if I have such long, womanly legs? It's the cross I have to bear, Yugi. You wouldn't know, being so... short and all. Oooohhhh! These long, beautiful legs of mine! Ahhhh!
• Men Don't Cry:
  • He demands Yugi not to cry after Joey's defeat by Melvin because it will be distractive in his duel against Kaiba.
  • Averted as when Raphael takes Yugi's soul, Yami, The Ace who has laughed off every horrible thing like it was a joke, doesn't even try to conceal his sheer misery at losing Yugi.
• Meta Guy: Unlike his counterpart, he has been this since day one.
• Mind Rape: Weaponised with his "Mind Crush" power since it's his go-to answer (aside from playing card games) to any problem he faces.
• Mundane Utility: Yami uses his Millennium Puzzle as a reading light and mood ring.
• Narcissist: He slightly has an inflated opinion of himself. Take this clip from Episode 55 for instance:
  Noah: In case you haven't noticed, I just won the duel! Kaiba’s body is mine! I'm free!
  Yami: Hah! You call that a body? On a scale of one to me, he rates a measly six and a half! And that’s being generous.
  Noah: And what? You think you’re a better candidate?
  Yami: Are you kidding? Noah, look at this body! I’m sexy and I know it! I work out! Plus I’m the King of Games. Would you rather be Kaiba and live the rest of your life knowing you’re only second best? Or stand tall at the top of the mountain? My body, Noah: Take it or leave it.
• Never My Fault: When he uses Slifer to attack and seriously injure Bakura (after Odion provided him a chance not to), he tries to blame it on Marik instead of taking responsibility for it himself. Later, he directs his hate towards Melvin when it was the Pharaoh's own fault for Joey losing because he didn't give him enough faith.
• Nobody Touches the Hair: He didn't take well with Gansley saying that he will trim Yugi's hair should he take over his body.
• Nominal Hero: At least initially. He doesn't care about Yugi's friends at all and is more violent and arrogant but much like his canon counterpart, he mellowed out over time albeit still a jerk to them from time to time.
• Oh, Crap!: When Kaiba summons Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon in Episode 14.
  Yami: Oh, poopie!
• Oh, My Gods!: As he was an Egyptian pharaoh, Yami sometimes swears at various Egyptian gods/goddesses (i.e. Ra, Osiris, Isis, etc.) Lampshaded.
  Yami: Oh my various gods.
• Older Alter Ego: To Yugi though as in the canon, his exact age is hazy.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Hand in hand with Cowboy BeBop at His Computer above; he also goes by simply "The Pharaoh." Or Yami. It goes back and forth. The one time someone mentions his real name, he interrupts and tells them "not to spoil it".
• Only Sane Man: Tended to lampshade the show's silliness in Season 1. After he Took a Level in Jerkass in Season 2 and 3, this role got delegated more and more to Yugi.
• Pet the Dog: After being unsympathetic about him being defeated by Melvin at first, Yami swore to avenge Joey by beating him in a duel and saving the world.
• Politically Incorrect Hero:
  • Aims a string of misogynistic insults at the offscreen, comatose Mai in episode 54, much to Joey's discomfort.
    "It's funny because she's a woman."
  • During the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City Final arcs, he makes several jabs at the fact Kaiba is an adopted child.
  • He asks Yugi if he's gonna have sex with Rebecca, who is 12 and in the dub 8. When Yugi replies that he won't he expresses that is a "Damn shame". Then again, he's from Ancient Egypt...
• Pretty Boy: Self-declared, and noted by others too.
  Yami: That plan is as stupid as I am pretty. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but I am a damn handsome man.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Yugi's Blue Oni.
• Sadist: How he acts in Season 0 where he's portrayed as someone who loves seeing his enemies suffer in the most painful ways imaginable. This is brought up in the main series when he falls under the effects of the Orichalcos in Season 4 and begins acting like his Season 0 counterpart.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Season Zero mostly but he has his moments in the main series too.
  Yami: You said it, Yugi! Now burn everything. Burn it to the ground!
• Sexier Alter Ego: The Trope Namer (although it was Téa who actually said it). As adorable as Yugi is, Yami is equally as sexy.
• Signature Move: His Mind Crush, of course, but unlike the canon Yami, he has no problems with abusing it. He even extends it to video games he plays as seen in his playthrough of Fallout 3.
• Superpowered Evil Side: In Season 0, he's this to Yugi. Whenever he's let out, someone is gonna get Mind Crushed.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Originally the Only Sane Man of the main cast with a mean streak, now he's easily the most sociopathic of the bunch (Except for maybe Kaiba who was willing to detonate an island with people still on it, something Yami actually objects to).
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his Jerkass Realization over the course of Season 4, he mellows out a bit come the fifth season.
• Tranquil Fury: When Weevil rips up a card claiming to have Yugi's soul in it, Yami's voice loses all emotion and then he gives Weevil the biggest beatdown ever.
  Yami: C'mon, Téa! It’s Weevil! What’s the worst he could—
  Weevil rips up the card that he claims has Yugi's soul.
  Yami: (Darkly) Okay, yeah. That’s the worst he could do.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Gets this characterization in season 4, following the loss of Yugi's soul to Raphael. He spends most of the following episodes brooding and awaiting the chance to inflict payback on Doma. His arrogance and selfishness are still there, but they take a seat back to make room for his concern towards Yugi.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: They may be the most fearsome rivals but he and Kaiba apparently secretly practice combos together every weekend.

Joey

Steve Joey Wheeler

"BROOKLYN RAGE!"

Joey serves the same role as he did originally as The Lancer to Yugi and Yami. He's a closeted furry and might also have an attraction to Kaiba. On the other hand, he's recently admitted his love for Mai Valentine's breasts. He aspires to be a professional duelist, but as Yami and Kaiba constantly remind him, most of his opponents are frauds and/or pathetic and Joey may be too dumb to be taken as a serious duelist.

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• Abusive Parents: He said that his father constantly drank and that it taught him a valuable lesson. Said lesson being solving problems using unnecessary amounts of force.
• Adaptational Dumbass: While Canon Joey wasn't the smartest tool in the shed, Abridged Joey is a straight-up idiot who often acts almost as silly and childish as Abridged Tristan.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the abridged series Joey often claims he hates Tristan and Duke, though it's mostly due to how they lust for his sister. And speaking of his sister, Joey is quite mean to Serenity; he blew all his winnings from Duelist Kingdom on Duel Monster cards, forcing his parents to pay for her operation to fix her eyesight, and when it was a failure he points out that on the upside, she won't need her cards anymore. He's also just generally insulting towards her most of the time and often acts as if she doesn't even exist.
  Yugi: "Wow, you're kind of a selfish bastard, Joey. [Beat] So what cards does she have, anyway?"
• Adaptational Wimp: Even moreso than his original counterpart. While the anime adaptations made Joey more of a weakling who often had to rely on dumb luck, he still had enough skill to handle himself in a fight. This version of Joey, however, is a lot more idiotic and nowhere near as competent.
• Aloof Big Brother: More of a Jerkass Big Brother. He's not a good brother to Serenity in any sense of the word; he spent the prize money meant to pay for her surgery on Duel Monster cards, and then took hers since she's blind anyway.
• Ambiguously Bi: Joel still retains his crush on Mai as in canon, but some of his interactions with Tristan and Duke have homoerotic undertones. That and he apparently has "dream sex" with Kaiba.
• Big Brother Bully: He's very uncaring towards his younger sister Serenity most of the time, to the point where he acts as if she doesn't exist.
• Blood Knight: He loves inflicting physical violence on others and expresses relief whenever he's allowed to beat people up onscreen (or offscreen, if 4Kids allows it).
• Brooklyn Rage: The Trope Namer but is not quite an example himself since he's from Japan (which, granted, 4Kids tries to pretend is America) while his accent and attitude fit the trope regardless. In one video, Yami even calls him "Joey, Guardian of Brooklyn" and in another, he claims to be from "Brooklyn, Japan"... which makes just as much logical sense as the rest of the "Japan is America" jokes.
• Brutal Honesty: When Tristan claims to be having problems with his grades, Joey straight up tells him that it's because he's an idiot.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Brooklyn Rage!!", which didn't catch on (in-universe, anyway.)
  • Must... risk... life... for X!
  • Stealing them is also his thing (Though the first time he needed to use Copycat and has thus far appropriated Keith and Tristan's.
• Crossdresser: Implied.
  Joey: (dressed up as the Flame Swordsman) Have I been crossdressing in my sleep again?
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Was on the receiving end of this from Kaiba in their "third place duel" where he lost in the first turn. But he manages to deal one out to Yami after the tournament concluded. He finished him with a joke monster to boot.
• The Ditz: He definitely has frequent lapses of intelligence. Compared to Tristan, though...
• Everyone Has Standards: Even he was offended by Yami's sexist quotes about Mai. Considering how young Serenity really is, it's no wonder Joey dislikes Tristan and Duke flirting with her.
  • No matter how much he and Kaiba dislike each other when they are ensnared by Combat Tentacles in episode 82 and Dartz says he's sure they have seen enough hentai to know what will happen next, Kaiba responds that he hasn't seen any hentai, Joey responds that he actually feels bad for Kaiba.
• Flanderization: His "Nyehs" became more frequent over time. It got to the point that in the Capsule Monsters mini-series, he was making the sound with every footstep.
• Furry Fandom: A member given his penchant for wearing a dog suit. He prefers to keep it hidden from Serenity but has fully admitted it to his friends.
• Hot-Blooded: As in the canon, he's boisterous and loud.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: He assumes that Valon is trying to help destroy humanity because of some traumatic event in his past like Dartz's other henchmen, and he's caught off guard by Valon's admission that he just really hates people.
• Idiot Hero: He's not the most intelligent cast member.
• In Love with Looks: In "Magnum Farce," he reveals that he's in love with Mai...'s breasts, even though he thinks they're "as real as a three dollar bill."
• Jerkass: Mostly to Serenity and sometimes to Tristan.
• The Lancer: Yugi's best friend and fellow duelist.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Joey is extremely protective of Serenity, and is vocally opposed to Tristan's lust towards her...when he remembers that she even exists, that is.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Delivers one in episode 50 where Joey defends the institution of The Abridged Series.
  • Delivered a second one that completely dispensed with all comedy on November 9th, 2016 with regards to the infamous presidential election of that time. The video involved him leaning heavily on the fourth wall and speaking to fans who were scared and wanted to give up following the previous days' results. Many fans said it brought them to tears.
• Super-Strength: Apparently, having an abusive alcoholic father means you have enough strength to kick down walls.
• Took a Level in Badass: In season 4, he reveals he's gained "main character" powers which improves his ability to duel considerably in spite of him not knowing how he did it at all. As a result, he wins a vast majority of the duels he's in, only keeling over to Mai because he was so exhausted from playing two card games in a row.
• Unexplained Recovery: After a direct attack from Mega Ultra Chicken that almost kills him, he recovered at the very end of the next episode offscreen. According to Téa, he was healed by friendship though he apparently still suffered a bit of brain damage. He also suffered a Mind Crush from Yugi, only for him to still be alive and well.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: He often enjoys it when problems are solved with physical violence instead of children's card games.
• Verbal Tic: "Nyeh!" Joey seems to be oblivious to hearing himself saying it, however.

Téa

Steve Téa Gardner

"Nothing can destroy friendship, it's the most powerful force in the universe! It's even stronger than Chuck Norris!"

Téa is incredibly fixated on friendship, and honestly believes it's the ultimate source of power and can right any wrong, God bless her. She can and will make speeches about friendship when provoked, and if she focuses on a single target, well...the less said, the better. She is fiercely in love (and lust) with Yami. And/or Yugi. It varies depending on Rule of Funny.

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: She adores Yami and makes no secret of it. He wants nothing to do with her.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Téa was arguably one of the more smarter characters in the original series. The Abridged Series instead makes Téa a friendship-obsessed goofball who often acts like she's smart but really isn't.
• Adaptational Wimp: Zig-Zagged. She lost her duel to Crump in this version, but still won against Joey and Mai.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Exaggerated in Season 0. She considers Yami a Knight in Shining Armor... after he burns the criminal holding her hostage to death right in front of her. She insists it was really hot.
• All Women Are Lustful: Perhaps the most perverted of the main characters (and that's saying something), frequently drools over attractive men, and makes no secret that she ships people a lot, including her own friends.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Is confused and disappointed when the Big Five don't want to possess her body. But they explain that they don't want Crump's sloppy-seconds.
• Berserk Button:
  • Crump successfully goaded her into a card game (with ownership of her body) by insulting friendship.
  • She wasn't happy with Johnny Steps for attacking her while they were playing DDR, but when he tried to forfeit a card game against Yami once he realized he was facing the King Of Games, she was so annoyed she brainwashed him with a friendship speech.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's a nice girl, but her friendship speeches can brainwash people as potent as any Mind Crush.
• Butt-Monkey: While not on the level of Joey and Tristan, she still qualifies, mainly thanks to Yami's mistreatment of her.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Doesn't tend to notice Yugi "that way" until another girl (or Bakura) shows interest in him, then she becomes this.
• The Dreaded: Yami really, REALLY does not approve of Téa's flirting, and he isn't afraid to let her know at all.
• Depending on the Artist: Lampshaded in episode 49, where the "Jiggle-ometer" (rates the breasts present in the scene) swings between settings depending on the scene shown of her.
• Depending on the Writer: Impressive, considering the series has only one writer. It's never really clear whether or not she likes Yugi or is using him as a means to get to Yami it can go back and forth sometimes within the same episode.
• Dirty Coward: In The Abridged Movie, she hides behind Tristan during the fight with the zombies, even begging the zombies to take him instead of her.
• Going Commando: During a dream sequence when she briefly becomes the Dark Magician Girl. She hopes that both Yugis got a look at her goods.
• Good Is Not Soft: She uses The Power of Friendship to Mind Rape somebody.
• Larynx Dissonance: Is voiced by Little Kuriboh doing falsetto, and it's pretty obvious it isn't a woman behind the microphone. It's lampshaded by Yugi when Marik speaks through her in his normal voice that "her voice gets less convincing by the minute."
• Lovable Sex Maniac: "The only one who will be taking my body is Yugi and/or Yami". This is despite the fact that she has offered herself to Duke Devlin, lusted over Marik and wanted to make him her sex slave, and even tried to seduce Yugi's Grandpa when she was feeling extra-horny.
• Love Freak: Her obsession with friendship is very reminiscent of this trope.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Though she also wants to hook up with Yugi at times, it's Yami she really wants.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Taken up a notch in Season Zero.
  Yugi: Thanks for standing up for me, Téa.
  Téa: That's okay, Yugi. You know I think you're really cute.
  Yugi: Hey, you wanna go out some time?
  Téa: I meant as a friend, Yugi.
  Yugi: ...Oh, um, okay... sorry.
  Téa: But I do love you.
  Yugi: Really?!
  Téa: As a friend, Yugi!
  Yugi: Oh... Alright.
  Téa: Let's have sex later, okay?
  Yugi: ...Huh?
  Téa: AS FRIENDS, Yugi! Geez, such a pervert.
• Most Fan Fic Writers Are Girls: She's noted to be a writer of fanfics, the only cast member to be such. She ships Harry/Hedwig.
• Oblivious to Love: Depending on Rule of Funny, whenever Yugi's not oblivious to her obvious advances on him, she's the one who's oblivious to his obvious feelings for her.
• Only Sane Man: In episode 75, due to everyone else being completely nuts.
• The Power of Friendship: A firm believer in it. It's also the Pharaoh's least favorite aspect about her.
  Yami: *Mocking Téa* Oh, Yugi, let's go on a date, and talk about how we're friends, and friendship, and all that stuff! *Normal voice* That's what you sound like!
• Shipper on Deck: She ships Joey/Mai and is greatly annoyed with Joey when he tells Mai that she wasn't in his friendship dream (which she actually was).
• Skewed Priorities: In episode 14, Téa stops Yami from killing Kaiba... only because she fears he would survive.
• The Smurfette Principle: The lone female of the group who preaches friendship.
• Straight Man: She tries, but often ends up acting as goofy as the rest of her friends.
• The Tease: Towards Yugi in Season 0.
• Unusual Euphemism: Mutters a string of them while passed out.
  "Oh my God, that's right, Pharaoh... Friend me! Friend me! Friend all over my face! Oh, that's so friendly of you. Oh, you're such a good friend. Make friends with my vagina!"
• Yaoi Fangirl:
  • Ships Harry Potter characters.
  • Hinted at earlier in episode nine:
    Joey: Man, I had the most unbelievable dream. There were two Yugis, and Bakura was a main character!
    Téa: I usually enjoy dreams that involve two Yugis, but that one was very disappointing.
  • And when Yami tells Noah "It's my body, Noah! Take it or leave it!"...
  Téa: I have the weirdest boner right now!
  • Also, in episode 74:
  Téa: (in regard to Yugi and Yami' fight) God, I hope they make out.
  Ironheart: What?!
  Téa: I mean, I hope they make up!! *whispers* With their mouths.

Tristan

Tristan Timothy Taylor

"My voice gives me super strength!"

Tristan is... dumb. Really dumb. It's his entire schtick. However, when he isn't stuck in his own bizarre little world, he can be surprisingly badass: his voice gives him super strength, after all. His physical body was destroyed/possessed during The Cancelled Series, and he spent most of it as a robotic monkey. His friends thought he died, but in the end he got better. He is desperately in love with Serenity but is mostly helpless compared to the raw sex appeal of Duke.

---

• Absurd Phobia: He has a fear of packing. Yup, packing before traveling. No wonder he didn't bring anything during Season 1 in Duel Kingdom...
• Adaptational Badass: Despite being a bigger idiot, this Tristan is far more badass than he ever was in the original series. Anime Tristan was mostly a cheerleader on the sidelines, a fact even Duke Devlin mocks him for. Abridged!Tristan, however, is supposedly a combatant in the Vietnam War, is friends with the A-Team (and gave Mr. T his name^note "The 'T' stands for 'Tristan'!"), and can kill or knock people out with little effort involved. He can also talk to snakes and snap necks with his mind.
  • His voice is apparently its own sentient being, granting Tristan Super-Strength and kung fu knowledge.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Canon Tristan was a fairly smart and competent person despite his lack of skill in dueling. Abridged Tristan, on the other hand, is probably the dumbest character in the entire series.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The abridged series gives him a middle name so his full name reads "Tristan Timothy Taylor".
• Ambiguously Bi: He has a crush on Serenity like his source material, but it's also implied he has a thing with Joey and Duke. There's also this line:
  Tristan: [on Marik] There goes a man with a very sexy midriff.
  Yugi: Learned something about you today, Tristan.
• Anime Hair: A single large point going forward. Presumably inherited from his father, Kemo's hair.
• Back from the Dead: After his soul left his body and inhabited a robot monkey for a while before he got his old body back. Yami also ressurects his old voice after it died from running with scissors.
• Been There, Shaped History: According to the trailer of episode 51, he fought in the Vietnam War, gave Mr. T his name (the "T" stands for "Tristan"), and went back in time with the Doctor and wiped out the dinosaurs.
• Butt-Monkey: He's the subject of numerous insults and jabs from every cast member, including his friends.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Holy *** on a *** sandwich", later added on by saying "with *** on top", then a third time by finishing it with "And a side helping of ***". He also said the original line uncensored in episode 48:
  "Holy bleep on a bleep sandwich!"
  • "My voice gives me super strength!" He also mentions his voice knowing kung-fu.
  • "Burn the Witch!"
• Cloudcuckoolander: Big time. He has two shoulder angels taking the form of the disembodied heads of Zack and Cody, he thinks the Axe bodyspray commercials were for actual weapons, and is convinced Duke is a witch because of his dice tricks. Tristan is also prone to just saying completely random and bizarre things without any context or reason.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He can break necks with his mind, his voice gives him super strength and knows kung fu, and wrestled a dinosaur in Season 3. Apparently, he's also the reason the dinosaurs went extinct and fought in the Vietnam War.
• Damned By a Fool's Praise: He's rife with this being a fan of Naruto: The Abridged Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
• Dumb Muscle: Stupid though he may be, he's definitely the most physically dangerous of the cast.
• The Ditz: YES. Tristan may be one of the dumbest creatures to walk the planet, and he's a CloudCuckoolander too.
• Idiot Hero: He's probably the most heroic member of the main six, being he frequently fights to protect Serenity and lacks most of the Jerkass behaviors towards the other five that they tend to show each other. He's still as dumb as a doornail.
• Jive Turkey: Temporarily, after being temporarily rendered black by an animation error.
  Yugi: Tristan, you're not black anymore!
  Tristan: Don't be hatin' on my blackface, playa!
• Made of Iron: Joey slams Nesbitt, who was in Tristan's body at the time, through a building with a full-body tackle. Nesbitt gets out riding a motorcycle like nothing happens.
• Memetic Badass: Parodied In-Universe. As mentioned, he breaks necks with his mind, and he might be the one who wiped out the dinosaurs. Thanks to a continuity error where he was initially with the main group and then alone with Joey, it's mentioned he can also teleport, apparently that's his mutant power.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: In Season 0, Yugi says that not anyone can become his friend... except for Tristan. He's a special case.
• My Parents Are Dead: His Season 0 counterpart claims that his parents are dead. Averted with the main series, however, where Tristan says "Hi" to his parents in episode 41 while he and Duke are dangling on the edge of the KaibaCorp blimp. Their voices sound exactly like his.
  • Though one episode claimed that Kemo's hair is his father.
• Not So Above It All: Even he's not above cheap shots at Ryou Bakura.
• Not-So-Badass Longcoat: Like his canon counterpart, he starts with a khaki trenchcoat before using a black jacket for the same effect. He gets even less respect here.
• Simpleton Voice: It gives him super strength! It's also a reference to how he had this kind of voice in the first ten episodes of the 4Kids dub, before Greg Abbey took over the role and gave him a completely different sounding voice.
  • Apparently, Tristan's voice counts as a distinct entity from Tristan himself, being credited separately from him in The Movie, it died from running with scissors while drunk before being resurrected, and it knows kung fu.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Episode 77 reveals that he can talk to snakes.
• Story-Breaker Power: His voice grants him superhuman strength and kung-fu knowledge, as well as the ability to break people's necks with his mind. If Yugioh didn't revolve around card games, Tristan could be the most powerful non-magical human on the planet. If "A Brief History with Tristan" is anything to go by, he not only fought in the Vietnam War but he killed the dinosaurs. This in turn makes him one of the few characters besides Melvin and Yusei to have notable physical combat experience (though Melvin's combat experience extends mostly to his "hugs").
• Super-Strength: His voice gives it to him.
• The Other Darrin: Invoked and mocked. In the original Yu-Gi-Oh! English dub, his voice actor was changed after Episode 10, and the change was very noticeable. This is parodied with Tristan's voice changing in Episode 8 (the abridged version of Episode 11), but everyone freaks out over it and finds it unfitting. Apparently, his previous voice (not voice actor, voice) had a drinking problem that led to it dying from running with scissors. The next episode, he changes back to the original voice because Yami thinks it's funnier, and it sticks. Jokes are still occasionally made about the voice change.
• Too Dumb to Live: It's kind of a miracle he's even able to function. As revealed in episode 61, he still has no idea that Yugi actually becomes a different person while he's dueling!
  • His voice (not him or his voice actor, his actual voice) died from drunkenly running with scissors. It got better.

Kaiba

Seto Kaiba

"Screw the money, I have rules! ...Wait let me try that again."

Current president of Kaiba Corporation. Seto is notably pretty much identical to his canon counterpart — a rich Jerkass elite duelist. However, his money and arrogance are really played up. An unashamed selfish egomanic, Kaiba yearns to crush Yugi in a duel, and in the meantime flaunts his money because he can. The mystery of his real father and his true identity is an occasional Running Gag; he may be a robot built in Ancient Egypt. Or was fathered by a robot. It's hard to say.

His most notable contribution to the series is coining the phrase Screw the Rules, I Have Money!.

---

• Abusive Parents: Inverted: he fired his own parents and moved into an orphanage. Though this is played straight with his adoptive father, Gozaburo.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Canon Kaiba was a competent businessman. Abridged Kaiba, not so much (for the most part). He wants to spend money on unnecessarily expensive projects, often for no reason other than because he can. Among other things, he states he wants to prove the idea of Icarus flying too close to the sun wrong by flying through the sun himself.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the original, Kaiba was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold; here he's a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. Aside from viciously hating the heroes and making it clear he doesn't secretly like them, he tends to be very insulting and disrespectful to Noah and Alister, while in the original anime he had at least a bit of sympathy for them. He's also not a great brother, often barely even noticing when Mokuba gets kidnapped. There's also his contemptuous attitude to the young children that his favorite card game is ostensibly targeted at, which is in stark contrast to the original Kaiba who had a soft spot for such kids and declared his intent to make Kaibaland an amusement park that gives free admission to orphans.
• Adaptational Wimp: Kaiba is not nearly as good a duelist as his canon counterpart, and in contrast to the canon Yami Yugi seeing him as a Worthy Opponent, the Abridged Yami mocks him for how many times he's lost their duels together. Funnily enough, this only applies to card games, in everything else he does he is nearly unstoppable.
• Ambiguously Bi: Confirmed to have loved Kisara in his past life as Priest Seto and is creeped out by Pegasus' advances, but his interactions with Yugi and Joey are dripping in homoerotic subtext. This video takes the case with the former way too far with the subtext.
• Ambiguously Human: One special stated that he may or not be a robot built by Freeza and then left on Earth. The one telling the story was full of crap, however, and it's still left entirely uncertain who's Kaiba's father in order to prove this theory.
• Amusing Injuries: Has had his finger chopped off by a helicopter blade and hopelessly twisted his hand during an especially elaborate gesture. He got better both times.
• Anti-Hero: Referred to as one by Marik, which is why he's not on the Evil Council of Villains. At best, he could classified as a Type lll to V.
• Arch-Enemy: In the original anime Kaiba and Joey didn't like each other, but the Abridged series takes it up a notch, as Kaiba will often go well out of his way to make Joey's life more difficult, mainly by trying (and failing) to obstruct Joey's entry into his tournaments.
• Attention Whore:
  • His goal in Season 1 is to become the main character by defeating Yugi at a card game.
  • In The Movie, he goes way off script to rant about how he's the best character and deserves all the attention.
  • After the Battle City Finals come to an end, he decides to blow up the island in order to put the spotlight back on him.
• Atomic F-Bomb: During his duel with Ishizu, he lets out a loud, drawn-out scream of the word.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Played for Laughs when Kaiba activates the Enemy Controller card and inputs cheat codes that theoretically rig the duel in his favor. Having unlimited cards in your deck sounds awesome, but not if it means you'd have more difficulty drawing the card you would need to win.
• Badass Bookworm: Even in the abridged universe he's a rich super genius who comes up with, plans, and makes most of his gadgets. As he puts it, "Being a rich nerd has finally paid off!"
• Badass Longcoat: It even talks too! It's just Mokuba.
• Bad Boss:
  • He is livid when Noah announces his intentions for the Kaiba Corporation, including making a generous donation to a children's hospital and giving all employees a raise.
  • He hired an entire harem of anime cyborg girls specifically so that he could shun them with his cold indifference.
  • Aside from his abusive treatment of Mokuba carrying over to Mokuba doing things as an employee, he also fires employees frivolously simply because firing people makes him feel powerful. This comes back to bite him when he fires all of the other shareholders of Kaiba Corporation and it leads to Alister disguised as Pegasus being able to buy the rest of the shares.
  Kaiba: Also, fire our PR guy.
  PR guy: Eh... I'm the PR guy, sir.
  Kaiba: Well, good, because you're going to have lots of public relations when you're out there on the street WITH THE PUBLIC! Because fired!
  • He loves firing people so much that he attempts to fire people from other companies, starting with Tony Stark.
• Berserk Button: Making fun of his lack of parents. Yami, being Yami, stomps on it during Duelist Kingdom and Battle City.
  "Say that I'm adopted one more time. See what happens."
• Big Brother Bully: He shows little to no care towards Mokuba whatsoever.
• Big "NO!": When Yami tries to trade both Obelisk and the Fiend's Sanctuary cards Kaiba had just given him for Melvin's (comparatively worthless) "Shiny Obelisk."
• Boldly Coming: When Dark Magician Girl tells him to "Become one with Critias", Kaiba... becomes one with Critias.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Subverted, the gang believes that underneath Kaiba's rough exterior, he secretly considers them to be his friends. Kaiba then turns around and admits he never liked them to begin with, and in fact hated every second he has to be with them. It's very likely the only reason he even remotely tolerates Yugi and his friends to begin with is because it's his role as the classic Shōnen rival to work with them from time to time.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Downplayed. He has off-handedly described himself as "the biggest dick in this entire show" and a "cliché emotionally void antagonist", but as Marik puts it, he's really more of an Anti-Hero than an outright villain.
• Cargo Cult: He worships his money.
  Kaiba: Oh...my...money.
  Yami: Don't you mean "God"?
  Kaiba: You worship your thing, I'll worship mine.
• Cargo Ship: Invoked.
  • He has a fetish for dragons, especially the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. When presented with one of the Legendary Dragons, his immediate reaction is to have sex with it.
    Kaiba: A Blue-Eyes White Dragon train? I have the weirdest boner right now.
    
    Yami: Why don't you just marry the Blue-Eyes if you love it so much?
    Kaiba: Believe me, I've looked into it.
  • He's also aroused by technological devices.
• Character Catchphrase: Played with. "Screw the rules, I have money" is considered his catchphrase, but not counting remakes of the first episode, he only says it twice, and the second time is in a trailer for The Movie and isn't in the final cut. This is even lampshaded when Ishizu says its his catchphrase, and Kaiba mutters "Haven't said that in years". However, he likes dropping variations of the phrase such as "screw the yules" or "Screw the Money, I Have Rules!", so he manages to both play the trope straight and avert it.
  Kaiba: Looks like the Rules ... (puts on sunglasses) ... Just got Screwed.
• Character Development: Parodied in episode 48; a past version of Kaiba, referred to as "Chibi Kaiba", audibly declares he has experienced character development and that it "tingled".
  Chibi Kaiba: From this day forth, I'm going to become a total jerk with a stick up my ass the size of East Texas!
• Character Exaggeration: A notable instance. Compared to the rest of the cast, Kaiba is relatively in-character compared to his anime counterpart. LittleKuriboh had plenty to work with already — canonically, Kaiba is implausibly wealthy, is very snarky and arrogant, and has an obsessive inferiority complex towards Yugi. In LittleKuriboh's hands, he just has to dial those traits up a few more notches to get Kaiba to the level of absurdist humor the other characters employ.
  "I hope you like heights, Wheeler. Oh, what am I even saying? You were already extremely high when you thought you could win this tournament!"
• Cloud Cuckoolander: He is Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense. Especially if the subject of dragons comes up, for instance mocking the jets on an aircraft carrier for not looking like dragons.
• Comically Missing the Point: When he, Joey and Yami are ensnared by Combat Tentacles in episode 82, Dartz remarks that he's sure they have seen enough hentai to know where that will lead. Kaiba proudly responds that he hasn't seen any hentai.
  • In episode 81 when Yugi compares what happened to Atlantis to Icarus flying too close to the sun, Kaiba states he plans to build a jet to fly through the sun to prove that statement wrong.
• Composite Character: Of himself, or at least his original versions. His obnoxiously huge ego and Badbutt persona is carried over from the Dub version of Seto Kaiba, but this version of him is willing to believe in the mystic and supernatural but likes to pretend they're no concern to him, much like the original Kaiba in the original Japanese Dub.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He takes over Domino City to host a card game and when someone says that his explaining of the tournament rules is boring he tells them to "Get the hell out of my city!"
• Costume Evolution: He provides the quote when he talks about how much sexier his second-season outfit is. He even justifies his Limited Wardrobe because the outfit is too awesome to wear anything else.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's the main source of sarcasm in the series, though Bakura and Yami are contenders too.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: He gets one of his fingers sliced off and seems to think he got brain damage from Yami's Mind Crush. It gets replaced by a robotic one.
• Ditzy Genius: He successfully designed cutting-edge hologram technology and a plane shaped like a dragon. And he is an absolute narcissistic lunatic.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: "Are you sympathizing with me? Well, stop doing that! I hate it."
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even he was horrified by Gozaburo's decision to spend money on "weapons of mass destruction that'll threaten the stability of world peace". Moreover, he still stopped KaibaCorp's production of said weapons in this incarnation, suggesting he has disdain for this business.
  • In Season 4 he is morally opposed to Dartz trying to destroy the world, surprisingly arguing that humanity deserves to live. Granted some of his decision came from humans designing dragon-themed monster cards. He probably also wants to continue to exist in a world where he has money.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When he sees the snake statues in Dartz's Supervillain Lair, he not only assumes that Dartz's entire goal was to buy out Kaiba Corp and replace its dragon mascot with a snake, but he assumes that stopping Dartz from doing so was the entire reason EVERYONE came to stop him.
• Fetish: Dragons. He has a Blue-Eyes White Dragon-shaped jet, a dragon-themed Self-Insert Monster called "Kaibaman", and his reaction to being told to "become one" with a massive all-powerful Dragon was to, mercifully off-screen, have sex with it. Also to a lesser extent, money.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Parodied to a great extent; even calling himself "the most skeptical person on this show". He's incapable of believing in anyone with more money and power than him, which is why he's skeptical about Yami being a Pharaoh.
• Freudian Slip: In Episode 86 at the end, he accidentally slips to Mokuba how much he respects Joey as a duelist.
  Mokuba: Wow, Joey lost in the second round!
  Kaiba: Oh, that's B.S., man! Joey's a way better duelist than that, he deserves better! ...I mean, uh-. Oh no! Someone must have hacked my brain! Uhh, Mokuba! Do something!
• The Friend Nobody Likes: "Friend" may be a strong word here, but except for Mokuba, none of the other cast members think highly of him nor do they care if he dies. Considering how he treats them it's hard to blame them for it.
  Joey: What kind of self-respecting dragon lets itself be owned by a freakin Harpie?!
  Mai: I don't know, what kind of self-respecting dragon lets itself be owned by a loser like Kaiba?
  Joey: Ha, got a point there!
  • And way earlier when Kaiba threatens to commit suicide:
    Joey: This is awesome, Yugi's gonna kill Kaiba!
    Tristan: I've always dreamed that this moment would come!
    Yami: Kaiba must die!
    Yugi: But what would Grandpa say?
    Grandpa: Yuuuggiiii... Kill that son of a bitch!
• Future Loser: The epilogue to The Movie states he joined the Church of Scientology and that they were "milking him for every last cent."
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He was the one who came up with the idea for using holographic projectors for playing duel monsters and coerced Yugi into dueling him. It's later revealed that Kaiba developed PTSD from a mixture of Exodia's terrifying presence and getting thoroughly beaten.
• Holding Both Sides of the Conversation: Does this once while on his own to fill in Mokuba's half of the conversation. He laments that telling Mokuba to shut up isn't the same when he's not there.
• Hypocritical Humor: He's also prone to this, making jokes at Gozaburo for relying too much on the Exodia cards, when he himself can't go a duel without summoning his Blue-Eyes monsters.
• Informed Attribute: His ego is said to be so large, that no structure can hold it without collapsing (hence, the Battle City Finals all take place in open-air space). While Kaiba is pretty much Pride incarnate in the series, several others like Yami Yugi, Bakura, and Marik have shown to be just as, if not more proud of themselves without ever having the same issue. There's also the fact Kaiba is implied to have an Inferiority Superiority Complex, further bringing this trait into question.
• I Reject Your Reality: Keeps on saying that Yugi lost to him in Battle City, when everyone including Mokuba, Kaiba's own brother, knew that Kaiba lost that duel.
  • When dueling Alister he tricks him into ending his turn saying he's come the closest out of all of Kaiba's opponents to beating him, which he considers a mere one percent compared to the zero from everyone else he's faced. Kaiba obviously blocked out that Alister would have beaten in their first duel if Kaiba hadn't gained Fang of Critias, his lose against Pegasus, and the first time Yugi defeated him, showing that Kaiba went as far as refusing to ever admit he lost at all.
• Insane Troll Logic: He also attempts to fire people who work for other companies, just because he loves firing people.
• It's All About Me: Granted, he knows the show isn't all about him, but he still thinks it should be. In fact, he makes The Movie come to a grinding halt just to point out that he's a better character than Yugi/Yami.
  Robot: It's all about you, isn't it, Kaiba?
  Seto: Well, yeah.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The way he points out Joey, Duke, and Tristan's flaws in Episode 60 was uncalled for, but he did in a way nobody can deny is true.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In Episode 60, he viciously denies that he secretly considers the gang his friends, and delivers them each a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to make it clear that when he says he hates them, he means it.
• Last-Name Basis: Everyone except his family calls him Kaiba.
• Kick the Dog: Admitting that he genuinely hates Yugi and his friends, and that he has no love or compassion for them.
• Made of Iron:
  • Emerges from the flaming wreckage of a motorcycle crash completely unharmed.
  "It's a good thing I'm Seto Kaiba, or that might've actually hurt me."
  • Subverted when he accidentally broke his wrist while dueling Gozaburo and then used the same hand to smash through a glass casing. Kaiba may be tough, but it doesn't change the fact that it still hurts.
• Mad Scientist: The duel disks he creates produce shockwaves whenever a monster dies. Why would he design it that way? Because he's Seto Kaiba.
• Memetic Badass: Invoked, lampshaded and all-around parodied. "Being Seto Kaiba" is the only justification supplied for how he's able to do some of the things he does.
  Kaiba: "Now do you understand why so many people love me even though I'm the biggest dick in this entire show? It's because I'm Seto freaking Kaiba. Accept no substitutes!"

  Kaiba: "It's a good thing I'm Seto Kaiba, or that [motorcycle crash] might've actually hurt me."

  Gozaburo: "Seto! Where do you get off kicking down my door like that?"
  Kaiba: "Actually I didn't kick it, I just looked at it and it opened for me. I'm Seto Kaiba, I can do that sort of thing."
• Mistaken for Gods: He flew his Blue-Eyes White Dragon jet over a developing island nation, and the indigenous people immediately started burning things to appease their new Dragon God.
  Kaiba: Tell them their Dragon God demands an offering of trading card booster packs!
  Mokuba: But Seto, they haven't developed radios yet.
  Kaiba: Improvise, Mokuba. Improvise.
• Money Fetish: To the point where he literally worships money.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling:
  • "That's odd, my Kaiba senses are tingling."
  • Also, he apparently has a "douche sense", which allows him to know any time Joey insults him.
• Narcissist: The biggest one in the entire series.
• Nominal Hero: As in the dub, he occasionally helps the heroes beat the bad guys. However, he still hates them and wants nothing to do with them.
• Of Course I Smoke: "I am on a drug. It's called SETO FREAKIN' KAIBA."
• One-Liner: Delivers one to Ishizu after he wins their duel. Based on his own memetastic catchphrase.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: After finding out that Yami lost to Raphael in Episode 73, Kaiba has a Freak Out and acts wildly hurt and betrayed. He caps it off by claiming that he "faked" all his threats of revenge.
• Perpetual Frowner: To the point where puppies die whenever he smiles.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In Episode 62, Joey mentions that the food Bakura ate in Kaiba jet's kitchen room was meant to go to some starving orphans back home.
  • He also spends a lot of money to prepare an extravagant birthday party for Little Kuriboh. Mokuba even lampshades how surprisingly out-of-character this is for him.
  • In episode 80, he helps pick up a comatose Joey, when Tristan almost drops him... though afterwards he does repeatedly tell everyone not to bring up that he touched Joey. (Unprompted by anyone ever doing so.)
  • In episode 84, he genuinely compliments Mokuba for his song at the start of the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix. Sure, he still later manages to make a turn to compliment himself, but still, the fact Kaiba nonetheless make a genuine and sincere compliment to his little brother is still way more than what you'd expect from someone like him.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Played for Laughs in Episode 59 where Kaiba interrupts Yami's monologue to point out the improbable skin colors of Priest Seto and the Pharaoh (both are white-skinned instead of dark-skinned). Yami promptly tells him to stop "activating the race-card."
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Just after beating Joey in a duel in Battle City, before hearing the friendship speech from them he tells Joey, Duke and Tristan how worthless they are. He mocks Duke for being a pervert with a failed game store, Joey for being stuck in Yami's shadow with no future outside Duel Monsters, and then Tristan for being "the single most worthless being [he's] ever met."
  Kaiba: (chuckles) Okay, let me make this very simple for all of you: you're losers! I don't mean that in an endearing way, it fucking hurts me that I have to interact with all of you so much! Duke, you're a lecherous pervert with a failed game store. Congrats.
  Duke: Uh...
  Kaiba: Wheeler... the only reason anyone even acknowledges you is because your best friend is the King of Games. You'll probably end up in jail in about 5 years with bills coming out of your ass because you have absolutely no real life skills, and you're a giant parasite on society and everyone around you.
  Joey: You don't have to be so rude, Koiba.
  Kaiba: And my name! Is NOT! "Koiba"!
  Joey: Nnnyeh.
  Kaiba: And Tristan... Tristan... You are the single most worthless human being I've ever met. Deuces. (walks away)
• The Resenter: Towards Yugi, as per series tradition. He hates him so much, in fact, that when Yugi beats him for the hundredth time in Battle City, Kaiba goes into complete denial of the fact he lost and instead insists that Yugi's the actual loser of that duel.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: If the "Kaiba's Real Father" side story would have been canonical with the main series, he's a robot. However, the person, er, robot, who claims so is an Unreliable Narrator who claims otherwise in another vid.
• Sanity Slippage: He appears to have lost his mind after the Battle City arc. He fires his employees as a matter of habit, expects every phone call to be Yugi wanting to admit he won the tournament, demands an elevator that goes up to outer space, and completely flips out when he finds out Yami lost a card game.
• Screw Destiny: "F*ck destiny! I'm Seto Kaiba! I make my own fate!"
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: The Trope Namer.
• Self-Made Orphan: Fired his own parents. He also forced Gozaburo Kaiba to adopt him by beating him at chess and then ousted him from power causing him to commit suicide, making him the trope twice.
• Serious Business: Trope Namer. He claims card games are this. As a kid, he acted similarly about card games.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: With Joey. While Kaiba considers Yami a Worthy Opponent, he finds Joey absolutely unbearable and constantly exchanges petty insults with him.
• Skewed Priorities: He has a hard time choosing between defeating Yugi or saving the world after he gets Critias.
  • When he sees Dartz's Supervillain Lair, his biggest concern is Dartz replacing Kaiba Corp's dragon mascot with a snake. He completely forgot about Dartz's goal to destroy the world. He also thinks that everyone else present is there to stop Dartz from taking over his company.
• Sore Loser: It's Seto Kaiba; what do you expect? Best shown when his reaction to the phone ringing is to hope that it's Yugi calling to admit that Kaiba won Battle City and he owes Kaiba all of his trading cards. According to Mokuba, he's been saying that every time the phone rings ever since Battle City.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: "Even though there's absolutely no chance of success, I'm gonna defy logic and attack you anyway!"
• The Un-Smile: Whenever he smiles, puppies die. The bigger the smile, the more deaths it causes.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: It's mentioned that the reason he and Yugi make such good dueling partners when going up against Dartz is because they play together offscreen. He still insists that he absolutely hates Yugi and all of his friends.
• Vocal Evolution: Inverted. Rather than become filled with more emotion like as the English dub went on, his voice has become even raspier with time. In Season 4 though it's begun to get toned back down.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's terrified of Exodia and its variations. This comes up when Gozaburo summons it, when "Explodia" appears to pursue him, and even when he himself removes from play three pieces of Exodia in the graveyard.
  "It's not possible! No one's ever been able to destroy him!"
• You Need to Get Laid: Many people think so. According to the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From The Future, he did back in Ancient Egypt, with "his totally hot dragon girlfriend" (read: Kisara). But it wasn't any good.
• Younger Than They Look: With his style of clothes and mature design, you would easily mistake him for a grown-up if not for the fact he still attends Yugi's High School (even though he was only ever seen attending school in the first episode).

Season Zero Kaiba

"You can’t defeat the power of friendship, Yugi! Hahahahahahahaha!"

A Bizarro Universe version of Seto Kaiba that appears in Season Zero. Unlike the regular Kaiba, he's genuinely friendly and nice, though still a villain and more than a little creepy.

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• Adaptational Heroism: Season 0/early manga Kaiba is easily the most psychotic version of the character seen in any media, but this version of him is extremely polite, calm, and disturbingly friendly. Deconstructed in-universe by Yami, who is creeped out entirely by Kaiba's sudden change of character.
• Admiring the Abomination: He shows nothing but respect and awe for Yami Yugi and his powers, despite Yami being a Faux Affably Evil sorcerer who threatens his life on multiple occasions. Yami is not amused.
• Affably Evil: He can be sadistic and violent when provoked, but is completely cheerful and personable otherwise. Yami Yugi lampshades that it's weird seeing Kaiba act this way and thinks that it may be just a façade to hide his true intentions. As it turns out, he's wrong, Kaiba is a genuine Nice Guy and can only be considered a villain due to his loyalty to his beloved younger brother, who is the Greater-Scope Villain of Season 0.
  "Yugi, your friends are simply wonderful! It's a shame they have to die."
• Anti-Villain: It turns out that this Kaiba never stole Grandpa's Blue Eyes White Dragon and he only agreed to duel Yugi for fun.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: He seems a little spaced out.
• Creepy Child: Yu-Gi-Oh!: Season 0 episode two portrays him as this, to the point that he can even make the theme song for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood sound unsettling. Though he isn't even trying to be creepy; it's just that seeing Kaiba be nice comes off that way.
  Kaiba (creepy monotone): I'm Seto Kaiba! The nicest guy on the face of the planet!
• Dissonant Serenity: Acts totally tranquil even when he's being threatened.
• The Dragon: To Mokuba, who in this version is a Greater-Scope Villain.
• Eccentric Millionaire: Very eccentric.
• Horrifying the Horror: Albeit unintentionally. He creeps Season Zero Yami out enough for him to cause him to back out of the game he was playing against him.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: His primary motivation, Season Zero Kaiba is obsessed with the concept of friendship to the point that it makes Tea look like a misanthrope.
  Kaiba: (sighs wistfully) I wish the rain was my friend!
• Kick the Dog: He ordered his bodyguards to beat up Joey and Tristan. Granted; they'd falsely accused Kaiba of theft and were planning to beat him up for it.
• Leitmotif: The Elm Street theme.
• Lonely Rich Kid: He's new in school and hasn't had time to interact with anyone outside of Yugi's gang. In fact, during The Stinger, he wishes for the rain to be his friend.
• Never Lend to a Friend: Makes it clear that even though he likes Yugi, he won't be sharing any of his wealth with him.
  Kaiba: Sorry, Yugi. I like you a lot. But I'm afraid I just like money more.
• No Social Skills: Yugi comments on how Kaiba's polite tone creeps him out. Kaiba agrees with him for some reason.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He's very friendly, which is a stark contrast to his original and abridged counterparts. It's so horrifying that Yami Yugi is creeped out and threatens him when Kaiba offers him a hug.
• The Power of Friendship: A firm believer in it, as his character quote makes blatantly obvious.
• Subverted Catchphrase: To his very first catchphrase, "Screw the Rules, I Have Money!" When Yami tells him that summoning multiple monsters is against the rules, he simply retorts that "there are several situations in which summoning multiple monsters is totally legal," much to Yami's chagrin.
  Yami: ...That-that wasn't very funny.
  Kaiba: Why would it be funny? I'm trying to explain how to play.
• Uncanny Valley Girl: Seeing Kaiba act so pleasant and friendly is weird.

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