Kaiba and Joey‘s antagonistic relationship is well known to fans of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, but even those fans may be surprised at the brutal pettiness of Seto’s best burn. They may also be surprised to find out that this insult didn’t even occur in the original series instead being featured in the sequel Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. But this actually elevates the insult to new echelons of greatness.
Despite being a direct sequel to the original series, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is largely its own thing. However, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX does have a variety of connections to its predecessor as most of the characters from the original show are implied to still be alive as major figures in GX‘s world. Kaiba is especially important as the president of Kaibacorp, the company that owns the school where much of GX takes place. As such, even when Kaiba doesn’t directly appear in the show, his presence can still often be greatly felt. Nowhere is this more clear in the episode 13, which features his best insult against Joey.
Kaiba Named a Monkey After Joey in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
In the episode, a monkey that Kaibacorp is training to duel escapes from his testing facility and kidnaps a student at duel academy. This is an absurd premise but hardly surprising for Kaiba who is so obsessed with dueling he later sends cards into space to try and teach aliens to duel. The best detail about this is that the monkey’s name is actually Wheeler, which is Joey’s last name. While this is an easy detail to miss, it is still a hilarious putdown of Joey, as Kaiba is basically calling him a dueling monkey. What makes this even better is that it is unlikely Joey would ever encounter this monkey or learn its name, meaning this burn exists purely for Kaiba’s gratification.
This is a delightfully petty decision that highlights Kaiba’s cruelty towards Joey. While Joey has lost a fair amount of duels, he has also proven himself to be a great duelist time and time again. Kaiba continued to put him down however, to a degree that implies that by the end of the anime it was more based on a personal grudge than on actual fact. The fact that the Wheeler monkey was completely separated from Joey shows that this grudge wasn’t primarily to actually inflict pain, but more to satisfy Kaiba’s petty ego. For a lesser character this may make them look pathetically obsessed but for an over-the-top jerk like Kaiba it fits perfectly and acts as a great Easter egg for fans.
This wasn’t the only great moment Yu-Gi-Oh! GX gave Kaiba, but it is the most subtle, given he doesn’t actually appear in that episode. In fact the burn isn’t present in the original Japanese version of the episode, which gave the monkey a different name. But fans can be grateful that the English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX gave Kaiba such an excellent insult even after his series had ended.
