Hats off to this guy, one of the absolute best Yu-Gi-Oh! characters I’ve ever seen.
Way better than Bakura who seems to be possessed during the whole show while being a villain, never acting through his own will, better than Yubel who seems to have some... 🔥 vibe around, better than Sartorius who is always hiding behind his twisted and goofy cult he created after (again) being possessed by an external entity.
Last but not least, far better than Kaiba (despite the fact I don’t consider this guy a villain) because Kaiba focus his whole life on another person; which is very ironic, someone who is supposed to be full of confidence an arrogance, is always thinking about defeating another guy: “I need to defeat this other person, I need to be better than him, I need to have better cards, I need to demonstrate in front of everyone I’m the real winner, the real champion”, how do you call that? pretty much the embodiment of insecurity.
Kalin or Kyosuke Kiryu (Jap version) is completely the opposite; it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a penny in his pocket, it doesn’t matter if he is outnumbered or if he is all alone, HE WILL STILL ATTACK, that’s a given and he doesn’t care if no one supports him. Kaiba couldn’t fight his stepfather as a child, Kaiba couldn’t fight anyone while having no cash at all. Kalin, on the other hand, he is a living hand grenade. But on the top of that, HE WAS MATURE ENOUGH TO CHANGE. The spirit inside the Millennium Ring can’t do it, too much ego, too much stupid hatred and sadly, the same thing happens with Kaiba or Darkness (GX)
Eh, not really. Kalin's pretty one-dimensional. I don't view most YGO villains/antagonists as terribly effective, but Kalin as a character is pretty bland. He's basically Yami Marik with less insanity and more depression, and a much smaller role. (Not saying Marik's a good villain, either.)
Uh...no ? Being an undead soul possessed by an Evil God basically reduced his character to a 1-dimension cutout screaming "Yay Sadistic vengeance!!" ad nauseum. Y'know aside from his entire problem with Yusei being based on a MISUNDERSTANDING. And maturation? Saying "oh actually I overreacted by reaping hundreds of Innocent souls to fuel the flames of the apocalypse" doesn't actually count.