Yu-Gi-Oh! fans have leapt to the defense of one of the anime adaptation’s most beloved antiheroes, billionaire Seto Kaiba, after some on the platform started to compare the character to real-world billionaire Elon Musk, who recently acquired Twitter and is, based on popular consensus, making a big mess of things.
Kaiba, for the uninitiated, begins the series as the heir to the Kaiba Corporation (for the sake of understanding, while daring to feed into the comparison, the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe’s Tesla) and rival to protagonist Yugi.
As explained in the below tweets, he goes on to use his wealth to make the world a better place overall, starting by changing the course of the company from a weapons manufacturer to a games company.
While Elon Musk may have had a more profound impact on the world than the above poster described, by heading one of the world’s first car manufacturers to bring readily available electric vehicles to market, the manner in which Musk has conducted himself in managing Twitter since finalizing the acquisition seems to be the point of contention at the moment.
The comparisons being made seem to based around both Kaiba and Musk’s seemingly ruthless business acumen, but Kaiba’s defenders would argue that that side of Kaiba turned out to be a side effect of the fictional character’s ruthless upbringing, as most of the time, he did what he did for the good of the world.
Perhaps Musk’s intentions with Twitter are also good, but the facts need to be faced. He has laid off half of the company’s staff, unveiled plans to monetise blue tick verification, and contradicted his vision of free speech on the platform on multiple occasions – and this has all happened in the space of a week.
Meanwhile Kaiba, while fictional, follows through on the ambitions he sets for himself and his company, while ensuring any damage or danger to the general public is mitigated. After all, the guy was orphaned at a young age and only ever wanted a better world for underprivileged kids. On that note, we think the below Tweeter speaks for everyone when they say:
The world unfortunately lost Yu-Gi-Oh!’s creator, Kazuki Takahashi earlier this year. Some time after his passing, it was discovered that he died trying to save other’s lives.