Thursday, September 10, 2009

Kaiba Brand

(Hello, YnY blog readers. I am not GDG, but her brother Invid, who as a guest blogger may occasionally post here when I have the urge. The top link in "Linkage" here at this blog is Awesomer Than Thou, my blog. Click it. Click it now.)

Something that GDG talks about (well, complains about) is that the "non-sequel" Yugioh series have turned the characters of the DM series into archetypes to be utilized.

Kaiba, obviously, is one of these; in fact, he's the most obvious of them. To the point where GDG has labelled the various "Kaibas" in somewhat derogatory fashion.

Kaiba is the genuine Kaiba, of course. Whether or not you accept substitutions or imitations no doubt depends on your tastes.

You might, for instance, find Manjyome Jun/Chazz Princeton, Kaiba lite, less filling but more entertaining.

Or you might go for the hearty but bland store-brand Kaiba, Kaiser whatever-the-heck-his-real-name-is, whose only real characterization in the first season was that he was too perfect for his own good. (Be careful, he goes bad after a while.)

There's also Edo/Aster Phoenix, named either for a Yugioh-related Internet personality (there isn't a version of his webpage I know of that isn't five years out of date, hence the Google search) or a flower, who is known as both British Kaiba and diet Kaiba. Because he's British, and can give you brain damage.

Then there's Jack Atlas, who is for obvious reasons known as ghetto Kaiba. The guy does have, unlike his non-genuine Kaiba predecessors, some honest and genuine angst-you have to give him points for that, at least.

Jack is trying for a re-branding, though, having grown tired of the current characterization: Pimp Kaiba.

Only time will tell if he is successful.