Kaiba’s Defeat

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About

Kaiba's Defeat or "Yu-Gi-Oh Card Flip" refers to a exploitable templates from a duel between the characters Seto Kaiba and Yugi Moto from the anime Yu-Gi-Oh. In the meme, Kaiba confidently presents a card with text on it. Yugi counters with a card which contradicts Kaiba's text, causing Kaiba to look shocked. Online, users have photoshopped what is written on the card for humorous effect.

Origin

On April 18th, 2000, the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, "The Heart of the Cards" aired in Japan. In the episode, the character Moto and Kaiba duel. During the end of their card match, Kaiba reveals what he believes to be his most powerful card. Moto surprises him with an even more powerful card from his grandfather's deck (shown below).^[1]

On January 30th, 2013, Tumblr ^[2] user themiseducationofb posted a two-panel photoshopped version of the scene in which Moto pulls a card from the game Uno to defeat Kaiba (shown below). The post (shown below) received more than 78,000 notes in five years.

Spread

Later that year, on September 29th, the image was posted by FunnyJunk ^[3] cumeater, receiving more than 3,400 views, and the following year, on April 21st, 2014, Redditor ^[4] italobro posted it in the /r/funny subreddit, recieving more than 2,300 upvotes (90% upvoted) and 200 comments in three years.

On March 19th, 2018, a four-panel version of the meme was posted by ConflagrationZ on the /r/trebuchetmemes ^[5] subreddit. In this version, Moto defeats Kaiba by revealing a bigger trebuchet photoshopped onto his card. The post (shown below, left) received more than 475 points (99% upvoted) in three weeks.

Several days later, on March 21st, an anonymous 9GAG ^[6] user posted a variation that references the Vietnam War and shows Kaiba revealing a card with an United States of America flag on it and the text "We can invade any country easily." Moto's card, however, reads "Vietnamese farmers." The post (shown below, center) received more than 2,000 points in three weeks.

On March 27th, Redditor^[7] sharparc420 posted a variation featuring the You're Mom Gay meme. The post (shown below, right) received more than 5,900 points (97% upvotes) and 60 comments in two weeks.

The following week, on April 8th, Redditor^[8] daltoniscool posted a version in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The post (shown below) featured a joke about climate change, in which Kaiba's card reveals "Global Warming is an issue" and Moto defeats him with the card "It's cold outside." Within two days, the post received more than 14,000 points (91% upvoted) and 100 comments.