Guess what I'm wearing

So I've been thinking about clothing.

No, despite my femaleness, that actually is sort of unusual-- I may have a wild assortment of clothing, but it's only because I also have a small assortment of other women who love to buy me clothes. Mostly my mother. Whenever she's at a yard sale and sees a nice dress shirt, a t-shirt she thinks I'll like, or pants that might fit me, she buys 'em (because they're ALWAYS cheap). I have collected more clothes than I'll ever need through the habits of my mother.

But I digress.

What I mean is that I've been thinking about the clothing the Yu-Gi-Oh characters wear (of course I have) throughout the DM anime (and also in some parts of the manga.)

And I have several observations to make (of course I do).

First of all, you can tell a LOT about Kaiba's insecurities through looking at his clothing. In his first manga appearance, his school uniform practically sags around him, only really fitting at the shoulders. I've long suspected that right before he entered high school, the hormones suddenly set in and he shot up from anywhere to a foot taller to two feet taller than he previously was. (I think this is partly because he always looks so SHORT next to Gozaburo in flashbacks.) So Seto hasn't filled out enough to fit in his uniform.

You can tell this is a source of insecurity for him because of his Battle City onwards costumes. All of them have over-wide shoulders, and the white trenchvest is clearly intended to make him look larger. It's like a lion's mane.

As for what he wears in Duelist Kingdom? I'd been looking at how subdued it is compared to his later costume (and even his earlier costume, that white suit with the huge red cape? That thing was so overblown.) And suddenly it struck me.

Those are Kaiba's pajamas and his house coat. Lots of people, Japanese or otherwise, wear shoes inside their homes that technically could be worn outside, but aren't so as to keep the house cleaner. He was essentially vegging out in his house, not bothering to wear dayclothes, while he obsessed over his Duel Disk prototypes and losing to Yugi and being soul-broken. (XD) He left by the window. That blue duster is the shortest of all non-uniform coats he wears in public (Neither of the white suits count, because suits are a kind of uniform). His pants are loose and comfortable looking, much unlike his regular clothes, which are usually sleek and form-fitting. His shirt doesn't cover his neck (Kaiba always covers his neck!) instead lazily drifting away from it and exposing his collarbone for all the world to see. Not only that, but the housecoat doesn't have a collar-- the shirt collar is what produces the effect most of his coats do by themselves. His pants and shirt are the same color, and it's a color that pants don't tend to be. Finally-- he's not wearing any socks.

Which kind of gives a new flavor to Kaiba's part in Duelist Kingdom, if you ask me. Makes it feel even more desperate than before. I like that.

And now you all know what Kaiba wears to bed. :D

Here's another random doozy: Serenity's outfit ethstetic tends to be a feminized, extremely toned-down version of Kaiba's. I do not say this lightly. Certainly, we only really see her spend a lot of time in the Battle City outfit, but that's what both their Battle City outfits ARE-- a high-collared vest over a shirt. It's probably because I'm a silentshipper, but I find this hilarious. Follow that theme for Serenity (feminized and toned-down Seto Kaiba) and you won't go far wrong when it comes to costumes that feel "right" for her to wear.

Of course, she also looks pretty good in a plaid skirt, but then she IS much, much liklier than Kaiba to be running around in a skirt at ALL. (snickers)

Joey, of course, wears whatever didn't smell bad enough that day. He probably bought it off the cheap rack, but since he's scruffy it works for him. Tristan dresses in a similar fashion but it's likelier his mother buys his clothes, because they look to be in better shape and of higher price tag.

Yugi of course is a punk with an Egyptian bent. It's not entirely clear if he only became a punk AFTER he was possessed, but I think he just didn't have the guts to wear his collar to school before (Atem had to have found the thing SOMEWHERE.) He also likes hoodies, although you wouldn't know it if you'd never read the manga. I like Yugi in hoodies, but I also like real-life punks in hoodies, so go figure. The hoodie doesn't detract from a goth/punk ethsetic at all. Atem seems to have at least SOME influence on what he wears, of course-- sure, there's the jewelry choices, but I'm actually thinking more about that uniform. Egyptians were kind of weird about fashion, by our standards, and it may well be that Atem likes that damn uniform because in ancient Egypt everybody dressed pretty similarly. (And yes, I know he's the one putting on the muscle shirt under it. Pharaohs dressed up their uniforms, but they still dressed pretty similarly to everyone else. The muscle shirt may be what he sees as an acceptable way to mark himself as different from Yugi's peers, and since it's like armor, that makes a lot of sense.)

Téa is always up on Japanese "respectable girl" fashion, although I do admit the yellow dress shirt flaring out from under the pink vest in Duelist Kingdom probably wasn't the best choice (I love her boots there, though.) She never vamps it up too high, she never goes too far into any counterculture. In short, she's a bit preppy. That's fine for her; it works with her sensible personality. She also wears shirts with Engrish on them, but that keeps getting dubbed out. Other than the Engrish she looks much like any American high school girl you might see in the mall or walking down the street. (I love the Wavebody shirt.)

Mai's sort of a cross between trashy and classy, and it's a very weird cross that works very well. She doesn't get enough different outfits. Also, she's the only major character to have a color theme that she sticks to faithfully-- that is, purple. Most of the other ones waver between two colors or don't stick to a color at all (Joey and Tristan don't stick to a color, Kaiba vacillates around the cooler colors and black and white, Téa likes pinks and yellows for some unfathomable reason that probably has to do with Takahashi's own weird preferences. Yugi... well, Yugi's usually wearing his uniform, and that doesn't count, especially since it's probably because Atem's all like "Woot! Uniform!" That wacky Egyptian. XD)

Out of the characters, the two who have the most different outfits are Téa and Kaiba (I'm sure you've never heard THAT pulled out as reasoning for azureshipping!). The outfit which potentially says the most about the person wearing it is Mokuba's Battle City outfit, which includes a very ornate cross necklace. (What does it say? That's up to the fanfic author. Takahashi probably just thought it looked cool.) Sexual-orientation-confirmation prize goes to the French maid outfits Zigfried had all his female servants wear. Most iconic is probably either Kaiba's Battle City outfit or Yugi's Battle City outfit (although Yugi's hair carry most of his outfits. You can't get too complex with clothes when someone has hair like that.) My personal favorite outfit is the white vest and black turtleneck Yugi wore during the Dungeon Dice Monsters episodes. It's Just So.

Colors that should be worn more often:
Blue, for Serenity and Mokuba, green, for Téa, and red, for everyone else.

Maybe, after I've finished the next character study, I'll do an essay about how Yugi and company can be adapted or interpreted as a Power Rangers/Super Sentai team. 83 IT'LL BE FUN.