It's taken me 10 years to realize Yugi was a lot more punk than I gave him credit for
The belt choker. The thick eyeliner. The open, slightly messy uniform. The dyed, spiky hair with bleached bangs. It's loud and expressive and defies the more homogenous standards of being a Japanese student.
In the manga, it's shown in an early volume that Yugi is a poor student. When class rankings are posted, he and Joey turn it into a game of sorts instead of looking for his scores. He only seems interested in friends and games. (Which, like, fair.) So a really cool detail about his main outfit is that his coat is the school uniform coat but styled to be more dynamic and fashionable. Yugi is not trying to conform to a standard for students and instead uses what's given to make it his own and stand out.
This is also the case with other outfits. Despite Atem being in this photo, this styling and accessorizing is all Yugi. It's clear he has a specific visual aesthetic he cultivates on his own, and I enjoy the way he expresses it. I think the fact he's just a shy and sweet nerd really adds to this too; a lot of people that participate in alternative punk fashion are people like Yugi that are super nice and just want to more boldly express themselves and rebel against tge norm through their appearance.
These visual elements don't mislead the readers about who Yugi is either. He's a sweet lovable punk dork and that information is communicated well through his design. I think it's why this design, with it's anime hair, has continued to stick with me years later.
Aight thanks for coming to my ted talk I just really like the fashion in yugioh DM (sorry I cant say I liked anything after DM tho)
