Listen, do you really need Yu-Gi-Oh! explained to you? The Japanese trading card game and its attendant multimedia franchise—spanning TV shows, movies, video games, and more—have long been perhaps the closest heir apparent to Pokémon in terms of lasting popularity and global reach. This year, the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, through which an entire generation fell in love with the game and the world, celebrates its 25th anniversary. That just so happens to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Nike’s iconic Air Max 95, one of the most beloved silhouettes of all time. You might think these anniversaries don’t have any significant overlap. You’d be wrong.
At the center of the fictional world of Yu-Gi-Oh! is protagonist Yugi Mutou, a meek student who transforms into the commandeering Yami Yugi through the power of the ancient Millenium Puzzle. (As you can probably tell, this show’s lore is insane.) Yugi’s right-hand man is Joey Wheeler (or Katsuya Jonouchi in the Japanese incarnations). Joey’s a scrappy kid who had a tough childhood, and he initially channels a lot of that excess emotion into bullying Yugi. When another bully is pummeling Joey and his pal Tristan, it’s Yugi who intervenes, insisting they’re his friends. The act of courage inspires a change of heart in Joey, and he spends the rest of the series as Yugi’s fiercest friend and defender, and a pretty killer Duel Monsters player himself—most notably, his deck contains the famed Red Eyes Black Dragon card.
In the anime, Joey’s often seen wearing a very familiar pair of kicks—one that for copyright reasons was never officially the Nike Air Max 95 ‘Neon,’ but sure looked a whole lot like it. (In place of the Air Max logo on the tongue, Joey’s pair read “Air Muscle”—arguably just as dope.) It fit Joey’s vibe: a swaggy, cocky schoolkid who talked a big game. Of course a bro like that would have some elite sneakers. In addition to the show, the AM95 dupes also appeared in a 1997 installment of the manga.
To commemorate the anniversary of both the anime and the sneaker, the Swoosh is making things official this week with the release of the Nike Air Max 95 ‘Joey.’ At its core, it’s still a riff on the ‘Neon,’ only with some design tweaks and easter eggs sure to make fans of the series light up. Across the white, gray, and blue paneling of the upper and sole, the shoe features detailing meant to evoke comic book art and animation. The neon accent pops just as much as it does on the original, and the rear of the heel features simple Nike x Yu-Gi-Oh! branding. Crucially, the tongue features the famous Air Muscle logo in lieu of Air Max. The interior sock liner is a bit more aggressive in its branding, featuring the show’s logo and the Red Eyes Black Dragon. Flip the shoe upside down, and you’ll find similar logo branding across the arch beneath the rubber sole. The packaging itself is a work of art as well, complete with intricate branding and illustrations, as well as an exclusive game-playable Yu-Gi-Oh! card featuring the shoe.
