Esper Roba

“Esper” Roba known in the English anime as Espa Roba, is a duelist who claims to have ESP. In reality he is a fraud who uses his younger brothers to spy on and relay back to him the cards in his opponent’s hand, thus allowing him to “predict” the opponent’s strategies almost before they perform them.

Roba is a young duelist who entered Battle City to uphold his reputation and protect his younger brothers. He is first shown defeating Rex Raptor and taking his “Serpent Night Dragon.” Rex advises Joey Wheeler not to duel Roba on the grounds that his psychic abilities allow him to read all the cards in his hand. With an air of self-confidence, Joey accepts the duel and begins.

Although Roba initially gains an advantage due to the fact he knows what cards are in Joey’s hand and on his field, Joey infers what is happening and attempts to confuse his watchers from above by putting the cards “Skull Dice” and “Graceful Dice” close to each other in order to confuse Roba. Mokuba Kaiba eventually discovers the source of Espa’s “psychic” abilities in that his brothers spied upon Joey’s hand from upon a high rise building. However, the brothers plead with Mokuba to let Roba continue with the duel, stating that he is a strong duelist despite his cheating ways. The psychic front was to build an impression of an undefeatable duelist and thus deflect any abuse that was usually heaped upon Roba and his brothers. To Mokuba, this situation paralleled his brotherly relationship with his older brother, Seto and he let Roba continue the duel. Due to this, Roba’s psychic reputation is tarnished but he continues his duel with Jonouchi nevertheless.

Roba eventually Summoned “Jinzo,” whose severely crippled Jonouchi’s overall strategy. Finally, Jonouchi played “Roulette Beetle” (“Roulette Spider”) which forced “Jinzo” to attack a random target on the field, Jinzo attacked Esper’s “Reflect Bounder,” who then reflected the assault back on “Jinzo,” destroying them both and losing Roba the duel. Due to the Battle City regulations, Roba forfeited his rarest card, “Jinzo,” to Joey upon his defeat and commented that he was ready to stand up for his brothers without cheating.

He makes a cameo in the Japanese epilogue to duel Mako Tsunami.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, Esper Roba is listed as one of the players defeated by Mukuro Enjo.