Yugioh 5Ds is my favorite installment in the franchise. The English OP is awesome, the Japanese OPs/EDs are great. For all of you who love waifus, 5Ds has plenty. And they're high quality, too. Well, some lose their potential later on, but that's another conversation The first few seasons being about classism, societal injustice, and shiny animal shapes in the dirt and being DARK is pretty amazing.

I personally feel that dark themes weren't really pushed like that again until ARC-V. I didn't watch ZeXaL yet because the English dub hurts my ears, but I'll get to it after I watch GX. With that out of the way, I realized something just a few moments ago as I was watching the 5Ds English opening for the billionth time. Yusei and Jack (and most of the other main characters and some of the side ones) have color schemes, but these two share an interesting dichotomy.

So, big and obvious things to point out: 5Ds is the Synchro era. The monster frames are white, the screen shines white upon a successful Synchro Summon' the typically yellow level stars turn white and go into green tuning rings. There's also a lot of white in the show between futuristic buildings and character's wardrobe.

Yusei Fudo wears dark colors, predominately hues of dark blue and his black undershirt.
Jack Atlas wears his white coat and lighter blue shirt and even his jeans are lighter than Yusei's.

In the fourth(?) Japanese opening (and some of the shots used in the English opening later seasons) Yusei, Jack and Crow are color themed; Crow is orange, Jack is blue and Yusei is red.

Yusei's first duel runner was white, which Jack ended up stealing (spoilers?) and Yusei later built a red one. Yusei's eye color is purple (though it is a darker shade of blue in some shots) but Jack's eyes are always a striking blue. Not to mention, Jack's favorite coffee is called Blue Eyes Mountain.

So, clearly, Yusei's color theme is red and black and Jack's is white and blue, right?

Then you look at their ace monsters: Yusei has Stardust Dragon, a predominately white colored monster, often with blue hues, sometimes purple or even green depending on the evolution. And Jack has Red Dragon Archfiend, a red dragon (it's literally in the name) with black accents and highlights. And its evolutions keep up that color theme very well.

So, Jack has the white clothing, the white ride but the red/black dragon
And Yusei has the dark clothing, the red ride but the white dragon.

This was obviously an intentional character design choice and the fact that I am just now figuring this out, years after 5Ds ended and of years of re-watching it in English and Japanese is mind blowing. It's something that I think needs more discussion: character design choices and how it reflects in the anime and the characters personalities and interactions with one another. So, let's discuss. What do you think about it, now that I've pointed out a few things I've noticed?

I for one would like to point out the typical "Red Oni, Blue Oni" character foil that's typically used in media. The guy in red is passionate, brash, and sometimes hot headed, while the guy in blue is calmer, takes his time to think things out, and is often more strategic. Think of Samurai Champloo, or the Red Oni, Blue Oni folktale from Japanese history. The blue, Jack, is more passionate and brash while the red, Yusei, is shown to be more cerebral and methodical.