Noah Kaiba

Noah Kaiba (海馬 乃亜, Kaiba Noa) is the birth son of Gozaburo Kaiba. He has green hair and blue eyes. This is probably a reference to the fact Seto had green hair in the first series anime. He lived with his father in luxury; what happened to his mother is unknown, although she was witnessed at a church service that apparently took place after his accident; the fact that she was never seen in Seto's memories suggests that she may have left Gozaburo after the accident. His father made him study heavily in the arts and in academic subjects, but unlike Seto Kaiba, Noah enjoyed it. When Noah was around ten years old, he was in a car accident which paralyzed his body. In the hope of saving his son, Gozaburo Kaiba downloaded Noah's mind onto a super computer just before Seto was adopted.

Gozaburo had adopted Seto as a body for Noah, but eventually Gozaburo forgot about his own son in favour of teaching Seto. When Seto Kaiba took over Kaiba Corp., Gozaburo, in frustration and defeat, uploaded his own mind into Noah's virtual world. Six years later, Noah takes his revenge on Seto. He kidnaps Seto and his passengers on Seto's Kaiba Craft 3 during the semi-finals of Battle City, hoping to take one of the passenger's bodies, preferably Seto's. With the help of the Big Five- the former chief executives of KaibaCorp who had been trapped in the virtual realm after their failed coup- and his father, Noah locks Seto and the others in his virtual world and duels with them for their bodies.

Unfortunately for the Big Five, they all fail to defeat the group; despite the amateur duelling abilities of such players as Tea Gardner, Tristan Taylor and Serenity Wheeler, the Big Five are only able to claim Tristan's body, with the combined Big Five being defeated by Dark Yugi and Joey Wheeler in a final duel. Disgusted at the Big Five's failures, Noah destroys them (in the dub, he simply sealed them away forever) and decides to take on Seto himself, attempting to take Seto's body so that he can fulfill his role as Kaiba Corporation's heir. He either brainwashed or hypnotized Mokuba Kaiba (he brainwashed Mokuba into believing Noah was his true brother rather than Seto), in order to weaken Seto's resolve, before Noah personally duels with Seto. Though Noah proves to be more skilled then the Big 5, he eventually finds himself about to be defeated, but uses Mokuba to discourage Kaiba from attacking as both Noah and Kaiba knew continuing with the attack would severely harm Mokuba, and because of how close Kaiba is with Mokuba, Noah knew he would never risk destroying him for the sake of winning one duel. Just as he's about to lose, Kaiba manages to get through to Mokuba to and frees him from Noah's mind control. Noah, in retaliation, turns Seto's virtual body to stone, along with Mokuba's.

Noah now duels with Dark Yugi, who has taken Seto's place to prove to Noah that he only won by trickery and deceit. Despite Noah's use of Shinato, King of a Higher Plane as his Deck Master, thus allowing him to add to his life points whenever a monster is sent to the graveyard, and Dark Yugi being left with only a small number of lifepoints at the start since Kaiba's had been worn down to almost nothing, he loses when Yugi- who was using both his and Kaiba's decks- draws Kaiba's three Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards, fusing them to form the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon to defeat Noah's strongest monster (outside of Shinato, which he saved from being destroyed with an effect that meant it couldn't be used on the field anymore) and subsequently using De-Fusion to separate them and destroy Noah's life points. After Gozaburo revealed himself, Noah showed everyone that there was a way for them to escape, but when he shows Mokuba to it he escapes in Mokuba's body and leaves the virtual realm. Using his new body, Noah attempts to blow up the computer by ordering a missile equipped satellite to destroy the submerine, with everyone else's minds in it.

At the very last minute, Noah remembers how Mokuba had called him brother and still loved him even after he tried to kill him and Seto. Realizing that that what he was doing was wrong, Noah tries to call off the satellite, but finds the computer he used to control was wreck by Marik Ishtar. Despite that, he manages to give Mokuba back his body, get every one out of the virtual world to safety, and save them from being blown up. Noah doesn't manage to stop the explosion, though, so Noah's and Gozaburo's minds are destroyed, because Noah made sure to keep Gozaburo from escaping into the net. Noah is finally able to accept the fact that he is dead though, unlike his father. (In the English dub, he is believed to have saved himself on a back-up file before the explosion.)

He is voiced by Chisa Yokoyama in the Japanese version and by Andrew Rannells in the English dub.

Deck
Noah uses two decks during the series. The first one can be seen as an allegory for the history of Earth. The first monsters he plays are seemingly human, possibly a reference to the antediluvian members of humanity present before God sent a flood to destroy them all with the exception of Noah and his family. These monsters include Chiron the Mage and Aeris, whose powerful attacking abilities enable Noah to briefly gain the upper hand. He also utilizes Fissure and Earthshaker, referencing among other things, the earthquakes that frequented Earth when it was cooling. He then uses the Giant Flood Magic Card to destroy every monster on the field and in one's hand and send them to the Graveyard. Noah's Deck Master is Shinato's Ark, an obvious reference to Noah's Ark. All his monsters go inside the ark rather than to the Graveyard. He then switches to Dinosaur monsters such as Giant Rex and their large attacking capabilities allow Noah to gain another advantage on Kaiba. He then uses his Deepest Impact Magic Card, symbolic of an asteroid coming down to destroy the dinosaurs, to destroy all monsters in play and deplete both players' Life Points by half. The field then switches to the Ice Age, and Noah uses Ice Age Panic to call forth his Last Tusk Mammoth. After Kaiba destroys it, Noah switches the field to modern times, plays the Spell Dark Hole, and summons Gradius and eventually Gradius's Option to the field, equipped with several Magic Cards that reflect futuristic weaponry and space exploration. After Kaiba forces the duel into a final showdown with Last Turn, Noah calls forth his Deck Master, which is initially crushed by the blast from Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon. It then reveals Shinato, King of a Higher Plane, symbolic possibly of end times.

In the Japanese versions of the episodes, Noah actually refers to his duel with Kaiba as "The 7 Turns of Creation" duel, and makes references to the creation of Earth during the duel. Because of its biblical connotations, Noah's mention of the Earth's creation is omitted in the English version.

The next deck he uses is a Spirit Deck, where his Spirit Monsters must return back to his hand at the end of the turn on which they were summoned or flipped. His spirits must be references to the afterlife and beyond, continuing his themes from his recreational deck. He uses his Spring of Rebirth card to take full advantage of this by gaining 500 Life Points whenever a monster returns to his hand. Combined with Shinato's ability to increase his Life Points whenever he does damage to an opponent, his Life Points climb higher to over 10000, and he simply waves off direct attacks from Yugi, laughing he doesn't even feel them. Noah then summons various Spirit Monsters, ranging from the powerful Yamata Dragon to the direct-attacking Inaba White Rabbit. Noah eventually settles on Hino-Kaga-Tsuchi, his most powerful Spirit Monster (also his strongest monster next to Shinato), and uses Spiritual Energy Settle Machine to keep it in play.