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* ActorAllusion:
** This is not the first time Creator/NozomuSasaki has played a [[Manga/{{Akira}} juvenile delinquent who gains supernatural powers in an incident involving small children and oncoming traffic]].
** Neither is it the first time Creator/ShigeruChiba voiced [[Anime/UruseiYatsura a hot-blooded high school student who's in love with a non-human female character.]] Kuwabara even calls said female character, “Yukina-San” in a similar fashion to how Megane calls Lum, “Lum-San.”
* BreakthroughHit:
** For Creator/StudioPierrot and Director Noriyuki Abe’s team of animators and producers; which among them includes Creator/AkiyukiShinbo. Prior to ''[=YYH=]'', Studio Pierrot mainly took cases relating to {{Shoujo|Demographic}}, and the MagicalGirl genre. [[HotBlooded Fueled with the urge to do something ambitious,]] the then young Abe requested to his higher-ups that he wished to get cases related to {{Shonen|Demographic}} {{Action|Genre}}, which in this case, he was interested in ''[=YYH=]''; and his higher-ups agreed to let him direct the work, and gave him full liberty in recruiting his teammates and get creative with their animation experimentation. The rest was history.
** This also extends to the full Japanese cast of voice actors Director Abe’s team picked out. Abe applied the format of casting a balanced scale of actors from all stages of experience; just the four principal actors alone consist, at that time, one [[MentorArchetype instructor-level]] voice actor (Creator/ShigeruChiba), one young-and-popular (Creator/NozomuSasaki), one fifth-year in the business but no name yet semi-rookie (Creator/NobuyukiHiyama), and one fresh-out-of-training-school NewMeat (Creator/MegumiOgata). This gave the cast a smooth Senpai/Kohai chain to look out for one another and seek guidance from those of higher experience. To this day, actors who have participated in this work highly appraised the acting environment they received.
* CreatorBacklash: Togashi ended up not liking the demon form that he created for Hiei, which explains why [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness it was never seen again after its first appearance.]]
** For the American dub produced by Funimation, Creator/LauraBailey considered her performance as Keiko "pretty bland", though Justin Cook disagreed hard. Creator/KyleHebert inadvertently revealed during a 2009 panel that he wasn't that fond of M2 as he found the character's arc, plus his fellow students, too melodramatic.
* CreativeDifferences: In an interview, Togashi said the reason was being tired[=/=]burned out, as well as saying that Jump rejected his ideas for "deconstructing" the characters, which might allude to a different version of the Three Kings arc that didn't come to fruition ([[https://www.reddit.com/r/HunterXHunter/comments/2ga6as/togashis_long_written_piece_found_in_the_yyh/ source]]).
* CrossdressingVoices: Kurama in the Japanese dub was voiced by Creator/MegumiOgata, a woman. Averted in the English and Latin American Spansih dubs, where he was voiced by men, and the Filipino dub, where "Denise" was voiced by a woman, albeit under the impression that the character was female. This would ultimately be played straight when Denise was retconned into [[HandWave "Dennis", who was only ''pretending'' to be a girl.]]
* DirectedByCastMember: In the English dub, Creator/JustinCook was the ADR director as well as Yusuke Urameshi's voice actor. He once joked in an interview with Animerica magazine that he was much more demanding of himself than the other actors.
* DuelingDubs:
** The main series is best known for its 2001-2004 dub from Funimation, but Animax also produced a dub in Hong Kong sometime in the mid-2000s for their TV stations in South-East Asia. This dub is much, much harder to find.
** The ''Golden Seal'' short movie was originally dubbed in 1998 in Los Angeles by Animaze for its original VHS release from Media Blasters' Anime Works label. It was later released to DVD in January 2001 in a double feature with ''[[Manga/{{Ninku}} Ninku: The Movie]]''. Funimation later reissued it on DVD in 2011 (packaged with the ''Eizou Hakusho'' [=OVAs=]) with a brand new dub featuring their TV series cast.
** There's two Latin American Spanish dubs done in Mexico: The first one, done in Cuernavaca at 2002, and an upcoming newer one at 2024, done in Mexico City, which was made with the sole purpose to replace the Cuernavaca one, which was pretty infamous due to its low quality on acting and translation.
* EditedForSyndication: For the show's Creator/{{Toonami}} airing, there were expected alterations made to tone down certain content for its intended younger demographic, but some content was reworked altogether:
** In episode 24 "The Deadly Triad", entire sequences were reworked or outright removed to cover up for the fact that the demon Miyuki is a transexual.
** Similar circumstances surrounded Itsuki the Gatekeeper and his desired romantic relationship with Shinobu Sensui.
** The manji symbol on the forehead of the minor character Kazemaru was removed, due to western sensibilities and inevitable misplaced Nazi associations.
** In the original episode 66, Toguro volunteers to be sent to Hell. While in the dub, it is changed to Limbo.
* ExecutiveMeddling: In a case of a positive example, Togashi mentioned [[http://yonkouprod.com/yoshihiro-togashi-x-masashi-kishimoto-interview/ in an interview with Shounen Jump Giga]] that it was his editor who had convinced him to make Hiei into one of the main characters. Togashi initially planned for Hiei to be a one-off villain, but his editor convinced him to [[HeelFaceTurn make him one of Yusuke's allies.]]
* FountainOfExpies:
** GOOD LORD, where will we start? [[Manga/HunterXHunter Chrollo]], [[Manga/{{Saiyuki}} Homura]], [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Jin Kariya, DEFINITELY Ginjo, and possibly Aizen]]...although this may be subverted if [[WildMassGuessing Sensui himself is an]] {{Expy}} of [[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar Souther]].
** Any character who gets to be Hiei's expy would always be guaranteed the top spot in their character popularity polls, and their manga authors are savvy enough to know that. The known ones are [[Manga/{{Naruto}} Sasuke Uchiha]], [[Manga/AttackOnTitan Levi]], and of course, [[Manga/HunterXHunter Killua]].
* FriendshipOnTheSet: The voice actors of the four main characters, Creator/NozomuSasaki, Creator/ShigeruChiba, Creator/MegumiOgata, and Creator/NobuyukiHiyama became life-long TrueCompanions since their production period of ''[=YYH=]'', and no matter how far apart their careers pulled them away from not being able to work along with each other, they will still find time to hangout anytime in private. When they do have opportunities to meet up to promote new ''[=YYH=]'' materials or other works that connects them, they wholeheartedly treasure every second of their time together.
* InspirationForTheWork: Hiei was stated to be an inspiration for ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'''s Sasuke Uchiha.
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes:
** The second movie, under the title ''Poltergeist Report'', was released in the US on VHS in 1998 by Creator/CentralParkMedia with a dub by Skypilot Entertainment. They reissued it on DVD in 2002 and 2006, but it hasn't been legally available since their license expired in 2009. Funimation has tried to rescue the film and redub it with their better-known TV series cast, but it's stuck in licensing hell. The film was also unavailable in Japan for many years for the same reason.
** The English dub produced by Animax is extremely hard to find. There's a handful of episodes online and all of them are pretty low quality.
** The Latin American dub of the series has been hit hard by this. The series aired on Cartoon Network from 2004 to 2006 and it never aired again. It did air on a Colombian TV channel in 2009 but they only aired the full series one time before being pulled.
** The Latin American dub of the second movie is even worse since it only aired exactly TWO TIMES on TV. The first time was on Cartoon Network in 2006 during the midnight timeslot, and the second time was on a Mexican TV channel in 2009 during the early morning time slot. It hasn't aired on any TV channel ever since, and there are no home video releases.
* MethodActing: Justin Cook (Creator/FUNimation Line Producer/Voice Director/voice of Yusuke) not only watched the entire series through before starting work (which allowed him to catch and preserve the "Jorge was the narrator all along" gag from the second-to-last episode), he also looked up scenes from the manga that were cut from the anime (before the manga was ever released in English), like Kurama's explanation of the moment he realized the depth of his mother's love for him and how he started to reciprocate it, and shared it with the relevant actors, to help them understand more about where their characters were coming from.
* TheOtherDarrin: Japanese Original
** TV Anime:
*** Jorge was originally voiced by Creator/HidenariUgaki in episode 13 before Creator/TomomichiNishimura, the voice of the series narrator, replaced him for the rest of the series. This recast is notable for TheReveal in the penultimate episode which shows that the narrator and Jorge [[NarratorAllAlong are one and the same]].
*** Sawamura of Kuwabara's gang was initially voiced by Creator/ToshiyukiMorikawa during the first stretch of episodes plus just before the Dark Tournament Saga (before Morikawa became better known as Shishiwakamaru). His appearances in the Chapter Black Saga, however, would be handled by Eiji Sekiguchi, primarily the voice of Sniper in that arc.
*** Kurama's mother, Shiori Minamino, was first voiced by Kumiko Takizawa in her initial appearance. Takizawa was unavailable to return later on so Shiori's appearance in the final arc was performed by Yuri Sato.
*** Keiko's father was voiced by Taro Arakawa in the early episodes but his final appearance in the Three Kings storyline was performed by Yutaka Shimaka.
*** Long before his proper debut, Shigure would be played by Tomomichi Nishimura in a flashback of Hiei's before Takashi Taniguchi would voice him definitively in the Three Kings story arc.
*** M3 (who is either [[AdaptationalNameChange Ryo or Kai]] depending on the medium) was voiced by Creator/NobuyukiHiyama in his debut for one line before Creator/DaikiNakamura would succeed him in the role immediately in the following episode.
*** Nobuaki Fukuda is mainly known as the voice of the Great King Enma, but back in the Genkai Tournament arc, Enma's voice could be heard over a phone as part of a gag at Koenma's expense. His one line then was provided by Ken Shiroyama who mainly voiced Kuroda in the same arc.
*** Mukuro was voiced first by Creator/AiOrikasa (Shizuru and Koto) when she invites Hiei to join her army. Her proper debut has Creator/MinamiTakayama established as her proper voice.
** 10th-15th Anniversary:
*** When the [=PS2=] games were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively, some actors had passed away or were unavailable to play their parts so recasts were necessary. The most prominent example was Suzuki, whose original actor Creator/KazuyukiSogabe had passed away a year prior to the game's release, so Creator/ShowHayami replaced him. The same happened with Rando who was voiced by Creator/JunkoMinagawa in the game after the original actress, Creator/YouInoue, passed from lung cancer in 2003.
** 25th Anniversary: ''100% Maji Battle'':
*** In addition to the above-mentioned Creator/JunkoMinagawa continuing her role as Rando's replacement voice, Sensui is now voiced by Creator/JinYamanoi due to Creator/RokuroNaya's passing in 2014, Rinku is now voiced by Creator/ErikoMatsui as Reiko Kondo passed away in 2007 and Suzuki is darrined yet again, this time by Yuji Kameyama.
*** There is also Creator/HanaTakeda replacing Chiharu Suzuka as Ruka, Jiro Saito replacing Takashi Taniguchi as Shigure, Creator/YusukeShirai replacing Eiji Sekiguchi as Sniper, and Naomi Kusumi replacing Hajime Koseki as Kirin. In addition, Creator/WataruHatano replaces Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki as Yakumo.
** 25th Anniversary: Year 2018 [=OVA=] Special:
*** Despite the side chapter ''TWO SHOTS'' and the final manga arc had Drama [=CD=]s released for ''[=YYH=]’s'' 10th-anniversary celebration back in the year 2004-2005, aside from the principal, and important cast, all semi-important, and minor roles were recast for the 25th Anniversary [=OVA=].
*** Hidetoshi Nakamura passed away four years prior, so Otake was recast with Masaki Aizawa.
*** Shunjun was recast with Creator/MitsuakiMadono; despite his first voice actor Kazuaki Ito still being active. [[AFatherToHisMen Director Abe]] notably explains he cast Madono for his overall familiarity with the ''YYH '' universe due to being their SpearCarrier since episode 1, and the main cast would definitely [[HomeSweetHome feel instantly cozy at home]] if Madono was on board. The cast indeed wholeheartedly expressed their appreciation for this recast. Madono had already played some semi-important roles in the series such as Zeru in the Dark Tournament saga and Yanagisawa in the Chapter Black saga.
* TheOtherDarrin: English Dub
** The TV series and movies all had different production companies working on them so this obviously came into play (the movies were dubbed several years before Creator/FUNimation ever got the rights). Media Blasters and Central Park Media were the other two companies.[[note]]Central Park Media released their dub of ''Bonds of Fire'', renamed ''Poltergeist Report'', before Media Blasters began work on their dub of ''The Golden Seal''[[/note]]
*** In the former, Jonathan Fahn, Creator/LexLang, Creator/KirkThornton, and Creator/DavidHayter (of future ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' fame) played the roles of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama respectively. Additionally, Lia Sargent, Creator/BrianneSiddall, and R. Martin Klein featured as Botan, Koenma, and Jorge "Blue Ogre" Saotome, with the second-former notable as its the only time Koenma has been played by a woman in English.
*** The latter movie had the likes of Richard Nagel[[note]]More [[SoBadItsGood "famous"]] for his playing the lead in ''Anime/GarzeysWing''[[/note]] as Yusuke, Cliff Lazenby as Kuwabara, James Stanley as Hiei, and Chris Orbach[[note]]Youngest son of the late Creator/JerryOrbach[[/note]] as Kurama. There was also Creator/VeronicaTaylor and Creator/EricStuart of future ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Pokémon]]'' fame both pulling double duty with the former as Botan and Yukina and the latter as Koenma and Kaiki/"Kuronue" respectively. In addition, we had Shannon Conley as Keiko, Caryl Marder playing Genkai, and Ed Kissel providing Jorge's voice.
** [=FUNimation=]'s dub was not entirely immune to this. In episode 23, during a flashback of Hiei's, Shigure (the surgeon who gave him his Jigan eye) was voiced by Creator/JerryJewell (also Suzaku and Jin) but during his proper appearance in the Three Kings storyline, he was replaced by Pete Webber. The blu-ray version went back and redubbed Jewell's performance with Webber for consistency's sake.
** King Yama's early voice cameo over the phone in episode 11 was performed by Creator/AndrewChandler (voice of Byakko and Bakken) instead of Creator/RBruceElliott who would voice him in the Chapter Black arc. Chandler's performance was kept for the Blu-ray release and not redubbed by Elliott most likely due to an oversight (it was just one line gag at Koenma's expense).
** Hokushin was redubbed by Creator/JMichaelTatum, replacing Jerome 57 who had voiced him originally. It was probably because he sounded too much like Itsuki, who Jerome had also voiced.
** Near the end of the Chapter Black arc, for the blu-ray rerelease, several members of the Spirit Defense Force squad were redubbed with more recent actors from their current talent pool. Sōrai went from Melissa Ellis to Creator/AlexisTipton, Saitō from Merk Harbour to Creator/JoelMcDonald, Ryohi from Creator/ClarineHarp (she later voiced Koko near the end of the series) to Creator/StephanieYoung, and one of the two unnamed members went from Creator/TravisWillingham (already Yanagisawa) to Creator/ScottFreeman.
** Hiei and Yukina's mother, Hina, had Kelsey Lewin redub over Lauren Goode from the original. The same happened with her friend Rui who went from Susan Huber (she was previously Sayaka) to Mariela Ortiz. The Ice Elder also went from Creator/CynthiaCranz (Botan) to Juli Erickson (best known for Pinako from both of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime).
** A few extras during the Dark Tournament were revoiced for diversity with more current actors such as Shishiwakamaru's fangirls and the demon spectators who jeer Onji/Suzuki before the fight with Genkai. This was also repeated during the fight in the hospital during the Chapter Black story, with a few of the nurses being redubbed by the likes of Creator/CheramiLeigh, Creator/BrinaPalencia, and Creator/KateBristol.
** Similar to the "remastered" sets of ''Manga/DragonBallZ'', a few minor redubs for certain characters were made for better performances. In addition to the above-mentioned with Shigure, Webber also redubbed his lines for the Three Kings arc. Creator/JeremyInman redubbed nearly all his work as Suzuki (including correcting the alteration to his name to Suzuka). Subsequent characters who mentioned his name were also corrected (though there are at least three lines where he is still referred to as Suzuka). Aaron Hatch also rerecorded his part as Sniper, sounding much less flat in comparison to his first go at the character.
** Everyone was predictably recast in the dub of the live action Netflix series.
* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/KyleHebert is versatile, but more well-known for voicing hot-blooded characters. On the other hand, his role as Karasu prepared him for [[BigBad Sousuke Aizen]] of ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', a show that arguably draws much inspiration from ''Manga/YuYuHakusho''.
** Creator/NobuoTobita—who would've thought that the guy who plays DirtyCoward characters like [[Manga/RurouniKenshin Kanryu]] and The [[Manga/{{Hellsing}} Major]] was once a pretty boy, or that [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Kamille Bidan]] would end up as such a villain.
** Creator/SonnyStrait commonly voices characters who either can be very comical or often have comic mishaps happen to them, yet at the same time often display major signs of being more competent than they look. None of that applies to his role as Doctor during the Chapter Black arc, where he plays a creepy SoftSpokenSadist.
* RealLifeRelative:
** In the English dub, Creator/LindaYoung (Genkai) and Creator/JohnBurgmeier (Kurama) are real-life mother and son.
** In one very brief scene of the English dub that shows Yusuke and Keiko as children, the child Yusuke is voiced by Creator/AaronDismuke, Justin Cook's cousin.
* ReferencedBy: The author of ''Manga/BlackClover'' stated that he based the Third Eye's Evil Eye off of Hiei.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The anime's fate in the US. It originally aired on Adult Swin with a rather lucrative timeslot and all its content was uncensored as well. But, at the time, the anime boom was in full swing, and Toonami, then airing in the afternoons, was the lead block for anime dubs. Since Yu Yu Hakusho was a shonen series, the heads decided to move the show there. This ended up leading to the show having to be censored as a consequence however but allowed the series to continue on past the Saint Beast arc into the Dark Tournament and Chapter Black arcs. Near the end of the latter arc, however, the show was suddenly yanked from its timeslot due to restructuring going on in the company and punted to ''4:30am on a Saturday''. For most following the series, the show just seemed to have disappeared without a trace as there was ''no'' advertisement for this. As a result, the “Three Kings” arc was hardly seen by any of the fanbase following it on the airwaves. And the last anyone would see of the series again on TV would be years later when Toonami was revived as part of Adult Swim's “April Fools” stunt where they showed the penultimate episode of the series.
* StarMakingRole:
** Creator/MegumiOgata and Creator/NobuyukiHiyama brokeout thanks to Kurama and Hiei. Doubly so for Ogata, because Kurama was ''her debut role''.
** Creator/MitsuakiMadono brokeout as a [[BitCharacter bit player]] who can pull weights from this series. Among his more prominent characters here included Kazemaru, Zeru, and Yanagisawa.
** For the English dub: Creator/JustinCook, Creator/JohnBurgmeier, and Creator/ChuckHuber all broke out from their respective roles as Yusuke, Kurama, and Hiei.
** Animation staff-wise, The Episode Director and Storyboard Artist, Creator/AkiyukiShinbo, would go on to direct anime for other animation studios, including ''Twilight of the Dark Master'' ''Manga/TsukuyomiMoonPhase'', ''Manga/LePortraitDePetiteCossette'', ''Manga/MariaHolic'', ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'', ''Literature/{{Bakemonogatari}}'', ''Anime/TheSoulTaker'', ''Manga/ArakawaUnderTheBridge'' and ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: The fact that Chapter Black, a recorded instance of all of humanity's evil is a demonic ''VHS tape'' really dates when the show was made.
* TorchTheFranchiseAndRun: Togashi didn't particularly want to continue the story past the Chapter Black arc (or at least was in conflict with his editors about where the story should go), so after the Three Kings arc (which cuts off mid-story before jumping ahead to the end rather anti-climactically), the manga has a series of one-off low stakes stories that lead up to the revelation that [[spoiler:King Enma had been brainwashing demons and unleashing them on the human world to help pad his rate of solving cases against criminals. Despite what is implied by the rest of the story, demons are apparently normally no more prone to violence than the average human.]] With this and [[spoiler:Yusuke settling down to open a ramen shop]], there was no way for the story to possibly continue.
* TransCharacterCisActor: One member of The Demon Triad, Miyuki, while initially presented as cis, is quickly revealed to be a trans woman (demoness?), and is voiced by cis actresses Ako Mayama [[note]](who was credited as "Rin Mizuhara" as that was her stage name at the time)[[/note]] in Japanese and Peggy Paterson in English.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** On one of the DVD commentaries, three out of the four main voice actors admitted they wanted different parts from what they were given. Creator/JustinCook (Yusuke's VA) wanted to be Kurama, Creator/ChuckHuber (Hiei's VA) wanted to be Yusuke, Creator/ChristopherSabat (Kuwabara's VA) wanted to be Hiei, while Creator/JohnBurgmeier (Kurama's VA) didn't admit that he wanted any particular part. If this were the actual cast and Burgmeier was still part of the main four, he would have been left with Kuwabara.
*** Also, Creator/FUNimation beat Creator/AnimEigo for the US license to the TV series. Supposedly, Creator/AnimEigo only planned on releasing the series straight-to-DVD, and possibly sub-only. Them letting Creator/FUNimation take the license was an early sign of the company scaling down. In the end, Creator/FUNimation's more ambitious plans for ''Yu Yu Hakusho'' ended up paying off, with the series' successful run on Adult Swim and Toonami, along with the merchandising deals.
** Originally Hiei was introduced as a one-off villain who Yusuke would defeat and be done with. However, Hiei proved to be incredibly popular, so he was kept on board for the rest of the series. This ended up causing some plot issues however with the Jigan Eye and his demonic form, so the demonic form was removed and never reappeared, while the Jigan Eye had to be altered a bit later on as well.
** Yusuke was going to go through an arc that deconstructs his character. Togashi later refit it for ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' during the Chimera Ant Arc. Judging by that comment, some believe it was supposed to occur [[spoiler: after Genkai's death]].
* There is a small short comic that Togashi only gave out to a handful of people. It contains gender-bent Hiei and Kurama and a sketch of Kurama and Karasu as a couple, among several other authors' notes.
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