Seto Kaiba is Ready to Duel in this Edgy Yu-Gi-Oh! Cosplay

Kazuki Takahashi’s Yu-Gi-Oh! is one of the most successful franchises to come out of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump. Not only has it spawned numerous sequels, iterations, and spin-offs, there have been plenty of video games and an immensely popular trading card game. What helped to catapult the real life card game to popularity was the outrageous personalities in the original series that seemed to take “children’s card games” way too seriously.

The best example of this from the original series is without a doubt Seto Kaiba, and his image has become synonymous with many of the series’ most grandiose yet coolest moments. And now he’s been brought to life through some edgy cosplay!

Cosplay Artist @nicoletters (who you can find on Twitter here) shared the above Seto Kaiba cosplay, and the hilarious icing on the top is the three Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards ready for the next duel. It captures Kaiba’s magnanimous personality well, and helps to emphasize why fans love the character to this day. Out of everyone in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Kaiba was the one who treated the game itself with the most intensity.

Kaiba wasn’t even involved in many of the shadow games throughout the series, but kept on as a deuteragonist and antagonist throughout the run of the original series through sheer dueling power alone. Keeping his head mostly above the shadow games plaguing Yugi, Kaiba was just there to duel and win. It’s why fans still love the character even after seeing so many new iterations of the franchise.

Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally created by Kazuki Takahashi for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and ran from September 1996 to March 2004. The series follows Yugi Mutou, a young boy who solves an ancient puzzle and is possessed by the spirit of the Egyptian pharoah. Being skilled at deadly games, the Pharoah goes on to create and solve problems for Yugi based on deadly games of chance.

Two anime adaptations were created for the series, but the one most fans will recognize is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. Duel Monsters was the first arc in the story to focus on the “Duel Monsters” card game and was the first season licensed for an English language release by 4Kids Entertainment. The first season of the series, which fans often dub as “Season 0,” has such deadly games of chance with horrible consequences that fans could not believe it was a part of this series at first.