Yami Yugi, known as Dark Yugi in the manga and Japanese versions, and also referred to as the Nameless Pharaoh, is the spirit of Pharaoh Atem that has been sealed in the Millennium Puzzle. He is the main protagonist of the original and second series, along with Yugi Muto.

Together with Yugi he holds the title "King of Games" (King of Duelists in Japanese version), by winning in the Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, Grand Championship and Battle City V2 (in GX anime).

After Yugi Muto solved the Millennium Puzzle, Yami Yugi resided in Yugi's body and would take possession of it when Yugi or his friends were in danger. After Yugi became fully aware of Yami's existence, Yugi could voluntarily give control of his body to the Pharaoh.

Apperance:
Yugi's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

As he exists in Yugi's body, his appearance is largely the same as Yugi's, although many alterations are made when Yami takes control. The main difference is that Yami Yugi looks more like a teenager than Yugi, is taller and has a deeper voice. In the Japanese version, though, very little change can be detected in Yugi and Yami Yugi's voice. His eyes are also narrower with a more intense, determined gaze.

Yami Yugi's hair features multiple layers including long blond crocked, pointy locks for his fringe. Unlike Yugi, some of the blond locks jut upwards. The rest of his hair features five large spikes colored black with purple rims all along the edges. The spikes were loose and free flowing at the beginning of the manga, but over time became stiffer.

In many illustrations Yami Yugi is depicted having purple eyes like Yugi. But in some of the cover pictures of the Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga he is depicted having aqua green colored eyes.

At the beginning of the series, his outfit consists of the standard male Domino High uniform complete with a closed buckled collar and a large set of Ankh cufflinks on his sleeves, which weren't present when Yugi was in control. It is also noted that his uniform becomes a darker shade of blue when Yami Yugi assumes control. Also, during Duelist Kingdom, Yugi's blue and white sneakers would turn into solid blue boot-like shoes when Yami takes control. The Ankhs were later removed. Unlike Yugi, Yami Yugi sometimes wears the jacket as a cape, which could be due to actually wearing one when he was Pharaoh.

He wears the Millennium Puzzle on a brown leather rope around his neck. The leather rope is later replaced with a chain.

When he played Dungeon Dice Monsters against Duke Devlin, he wears a dark-gray long-sleeved shirt, a sleeveless vest, dark blue pants and black shoes.

When he and Téa took a day together to find out about the Millennium Puzzle, he wore black linen and several pieces of wrist-chains, to match the Millennium Puzzle's chain.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters, Yami wears a different attire of a violet jacket and jeans. He also wears the Capsule Shooter on his left arm. In episode 4, he gains duel armor that allows him to become one with one of his capsule monsters


Personality:
In the manga, Dark Yugi starts out as an unforgiving vigilante. He emerges to deal justice to people who trespass the souls of Yugi and his friends. Although his acts are righteous, he lives up to his namesake of Dark; his Penalty Game punishments are usually very brutal. Later living inside Yugi's body, he seems to become more of a caring, nice, and friendly man, even though he always had that in him, and the friendship of Yugi's friends had helped it reveal to others. Yami is a strong, powerful and skilled Pharaoh. He attempts to balance darkness and evil in his use of the shadow magic from his Millennium Item. Unlike Yami Bakura and Yami Marik, he uses it to protect others, rather than for personal gain, and to inflict punishment only on people who have severely wronged innocents.

He is slightly reserved, as he doesn't reveal his existence to Yugi or his friends. At first Yugi