The Big Five are major antagonists in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. They are the five corrupt executive board members of the Kaiba Corporation: Gansley, Crump, Johnson, Nezbitt and Lector. They initially serve Gozaburo Kaiba, then Seto Kaiba, then Maximillion Pegasus, and finally Noah Kaiba, forming alliances with them to gain more power.
Members[]
Gansley is the leader and founder of the Big Five who started his business career from a lemonade stand that he stole from his neighbor. Crump is an accountant who is obsessed with penguins. Johnson is a legal expert, lawyer, and judge who sets people up (at one point convincing a jury that a hydrophobic man stole a boat). Nesbitt is an expert in technology who wanted to make machines for war. Lector is the former vice president of Kaiba Corp and the best duelist.
History[]
Early life[]
The Big Five worked as the main board of directors for Gozaburo, the head of Kaiba Corp. They conspired with Seto Kaiba to overthrow Gozaburo, but he betrayed them, breaking his deal with them. Signs of Seto lacking to give them the power and respect they expected is Seto neglecting Crump's penguin theme park, destroying Nesbitt's lab and taking Lector's position of heir to company president and rendering the former vice president little more than a company figurehead and consultant.
Duelist Kingdom arc[]
When Kaiba left Kaiba Corp after being defeated by Yugi, the Big Five conspired with Pegasus J. Crawford to take over Kaiba Corp and have Seto killed. Seto survived, however but Pegasus defeated him in a duel and trapped his soul inside a card. The Big Five watched the duel between Yugi and Pegasus, planning to broadcast it if Pegasus won; however, Yugi emerged as the victor instead, and Pegasus released the souls of those he had imprisoned. In the manga, Seto fired the Big Five for their betrayal, and they were never seen again.
Legendary Heroes arc[]
Upon return to Kaiba Corp, Seto threatened to fire the Big Five, but they told him they were only pretending to work for Pegasus. They also revealed that they had finished Seto's virtual reality game, so he entered it, but they set a trap inside it for him to kill him. Seto's brother Mokuba asked Yugi and his friends to help. Soon Yugi, Kaiba, Joey Wheeler and Mai Valentine faced off against the Five Headed Dragon, which the Big Five themselves seemed to take the form of a five-headed dragon. Joey, Mai and Mokuba were all killed by the Five Headed Dragon (later to be revived by Mystical Elf) and Yugi and Kaiba worked together to summon Dragon Master Knight, which destroyed Five Headed Dragon, trapping the Big Five in the virtual world.
Virtual World arc[]
The Big Five remained trapped in the virtual world so long that their bodies were destroyed. They soon came across Noah Kaiba, the son of Kaiba's wicked stepfather Gozaburo Kaiba, and joined forces with him as they shared a common enemy in Kaiba. When Yugi Muto, Joey Wheeler, Tea Gardner, Tristan Taylor, Serenity Wheeler, Duke Devlin and the Kaiba brothers entered the virtual world, Noah and the Big Five separated them for the Big Five to duel them and steal their bodies. They dueled using a deck master system, with the Big Five in the forms of their own deck masters. Gansley was Deepsea Warrior, Crump was Nightmare Penguin, Johnson was Judge Man, Nesbitt was Robotic Knight and Lector was Jinzo.
Yugi defeated Gansley, Tea defeated Crump and Joey defeated Johnson. Tristan, Duke and Serenity dueled Nezbitt all at once. Though they were able to defeat Nezbitt when Serenity attacked him, Tristan's Deck Master was destroyed during the duel so Nezbitt stole his body and digitized him into a robot monkey. Seto defeated Lector. Nezbitt kidnapped Mokuba and took him to Noah to brainwash him.
Gansley, Crump, Johnson and Lector returned to chase Joey, Duke, and Serenity and steal their bodies. Crump and Lector got in a fight over who gets to choose first. Noah, however, recalled them and chastised them for cheating. He then sent them to duel Yugi, all in Tristian's body. They dueled Yugi and Joey, taking it in turns to possess Tristian's body to duel, rotating their deck masters as well. Lector did most of the duel but they were defeated when their deck master was destroyed. They tried again to steal the gang's bodies by force but Noah recalled them again and deleted them essentially murdering them for their failure.
However in the 4Kids English version of the anime, Noah imprisons each of The Big Five in some isolated part of his virtual world until the place's destruction eight episodes later.
Reshef of Destruction[]
A variation of the Big Five, referred to as the Big Bad Five, appears in the Game Boy Advance Game Yu-gi-oh! Reshef of Destruction. Here they are depicted as five members of Kaiba Corp about to be fired by Mokuba. Desperate, they beg for another chance, getting it by playing the five Duel Monster Forms seen in the Virtual World Arc as part of the Kaibaman stage show. As part of the act, the player duels them as one opponent, then they are defeated by Kaibaman.
Relationships[]
Allies[]
- Kaiba Corp (formerly)
- Gozaburo Kaiba (formerly)
- Noah Kaiba (formerly)
- Seto Kaiba (formerly)
- Mokuba Kaiba (formerly)
- Pegasus (formerly)
Enemies[]
- Seto Kaiba
- Mokuba Kaiba
- Kaiba Corp
- Gozaburo Kaiba
- Yugi Muto
- Yami Yugi
- Tea Gardner
- Joey Wheeler
- Serenity Wheeler
- Tristan Taylor
- Duke Devlin
Trivia[]
- The Big Five are expanded upon in the anime, being more evil and prominent in the anime, whereas in the manga they are never mentioned again after Duelist Kingdom, their fate also changes from manga to anime. While they're never punished aside from being fired in the manga, they are banished into the virtual realm by Seto in the anime and later killed by Noah Kaiba for failing him.
- Daimon takes the form of Jinzo in the virtual world. Jinzo's mask resembles that of Hannibal Lecter, which may be where Daimon gets his English dubbed name Lector.
- The Big Five are not the only evil team of five to start out shadowed and later be revealed. In Dragon Ball Z, the Ginyu Force are shadowed as they leave Planet Freeza for Namek, and are not fully seen in color until they arrive and strike their poses. In Sailor Moon S, the Witches 5 (with the exception of Eudial) are all shadowed, until later Mimet is revealed (Mimet even plays Twister with Telulu, who unlike Mimet is still shadowed). The remaining three witches are fully seen in color in their respective episodes, but only last one episode before each is killed.
- Three of the Big Five resemble figures that are evil in Family Guy. Gansley resembles Jerry of the El Dorado Cigarette company in the episode Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington (even has the same uniform and tie), the leader of the FCC, which censors everything in PTV, resembles Nesbitt and in the episode FOX-y Lady, the leader of the Fox channel (Lois' boss), whom Brian says is evil and is later proved to be right, resembles Johnson. This is like a coincidence, however. This is also comparable to the Abridged Series, where they are members of 4Kids, who are portrayed as evil in this series likely seeing as they were shut down in real life.
- Alongside Gozaburo, the Big Five are the first characters to unambiguously die in the dub without any censorship (though their original deaths were censored from the Japanese version, which only forestalled their deaths eight episodes). Noah was destroyed along with them but his death was censored by characters speculating that he had survived. Other villains to die as such are Anubis, Dartz (though the existence of his seemingly-corporeal spirit form downplays this), Bakura and Zorc though they're monsters not humans.
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