|
Current life: Kaiba Seto, Modern Japan, 20/21st Century A.D.
This Seto, naturally, is the one we know the most about. His parents both died at an early age (in the manga it's reported
that his mother died giving birth to Mokuba, and their father died in a car accident when Mokuba was 3); relatives refused
to take the boys and they thus spend the next two years in a public orphanage, with Seto taking on the role of surrogate father
to his younger brother. Many potential parents who visited were interested in adopting Seto, an obvious genius even at that
young age, but none were willing to take Mokuba as well--and so Seto stayed.
None, that is, until Kaiba Gozaburo. One day when Seto was 10 and Mokuba 5, he arrived at the orphanage to hand out toys
to the children (most likely as a corporate P.R. stunt, seeing as how gozaburo isn't a particularly nice guy). Seto recognized
him from a televised chess match--in addition to owning Kaiba Corporation, the old man was one of the foremost chess players
in the world--and, knowing that this could be an opportunity to change his and Mokuba's lives forever, he challenged Gozaburo
to a game of chess. The Stakes? If Seto won, Gozaburo would adopt both him and Mokuba, making them heirs to Kaiba Corporation
and its assets.
(A clarification: this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision on Seto's part. He'd had this idea around the time he saw
the chess match, and had been studying all of Gozaburo's published chess books furiously, hoping to use Gozaburo's own strategies
against him.)
At first, Gozaburo laughed off the challenge, asking the little boy, "Do you know how I am?" But something about
Seto convinced him to humor the child, and they sat down to play a game that would change everything.
Seto won. He won the chess game, the name of Kaiba, the right to someday inherit Kaiba Corporation, a secure future for
himself and his brother. He also won a world of pain.
In order to "prepare" his adopted son for the rigors of life as a CEO, Gozaburo instituted "training"
measures that would be considered not just abusive but sadistic by many people. In the manga Seto is shown with a dog collar
around his neck, forced to study nonstop, and Gozaburo stands over him leering and holding a riding crop under his chin. Takahashi-sensei
leaves the rest of the details to the vivid (unfortunately, in this case) imaginations of the readers.
those nightmarish years were the ones that defined Kaiba's personality. Somehow, holding onto his precious games as a
respite and a ray of hope in his life, Seto managed to endure, and came out of that period with his sanity relatively intact.
But he would never again be the sad, gentle little boy with dreams of a better life. Under Gozaburo's "tutelage"
he became cold, hard, ruthless: the perfect business man. Only when he was with Mokuba did he let his guard down. And in the
end, Gozaburo reaped what he had sown-his perfectly cultivated heir pulled Kaiba Corporation out from under him. 6 years
after becoming a Kaiba, with the backing of the Big 5 and Mokuba's and his own shares of the company stock, Seto held a controlling
portion, enough to claim the CEO position for himself.
Accounts differ on what happened, but all agree on one thing: Seto and Gozaburo were in the Kaiba Corporation CEO's office
one day. They talked. And Kaiba Gozaburo died. In the first series anime, Seto threatened to push Gozaburo out the window
of the tall skyscraper and the old man had a heart attack. In the manga, Seto didn't have to threaten or push. Gozaburo conceded
defeat. "The strong will survive and the weak must die." The old man jumped from the window, ending his reign as
CEO.
Under Seto's ownership, Kaiba Corporation started out in a radically different direction. The high-tech weapons and military
programs produced under Gozaburo were scrapped, and Seto turned the company toward creating sophisticated, high-tech games.
When Seto developed an interest in Duel Monsters is unknown, but shortly after the switch of ownership, Kaiba Corp. began
to produce special arenas in which the card game could be played using "solid vision" 3-D holigraphic technology.
Seto had a theme park called Kaiba Land built to showcase these duel rings.
Sometime during this period, Seto became widely known as a world champion Duel Monsters player, and he acquired his first
three Blue Eyes White Dragon cards. When he learned the 4th belonged to an old man named Mutou Sugoroku--grandfather of Yugi--he
endeavored to have it by any means neccessary. He ended up forcing Sugoroku into a duel at one of Kaiba Corp's special arenas;
the Solid Vision technology was too much for the old man's heart, and Sugoroku fainted. When Yugi arrived to save his grandfather,
Kaiba ripped up the 4th Blue Eyes in half, and the boy was so angry that he challenged Kaiba to a duel. Kaiba easily overpowered
Yugi in the begining of the match with his Blue Eyes--there was one, almost totally impossible way for Yugi to win.
and he did it. Yami Yugi summoned the legendary monster Exodia and defeated Kaiba. Trying to show Seto that the cards
were about more than acquiring power, Yami Yugi used his Mind Crush ability to purge the darkness from Kaiba's soul. (The
manga differs on this account. It threw him into a coma for months.)
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where history leaves off and Duelist Kingdom begins.
|
