Anime/Yu Yu Hakusho [Revived]

I used to love this show when I was younger. I really liked Yusuke and how utterly different he was from typical shonen protagonists. Whereas most anime protagonists would, at worst, be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Yusuke was a Jerk With A Heart Of More Jerk, and I loved every minute of it.

I liked the entire cast really. Don't particularly care for the Stuff at the tail end of Chapter Black though but I think most people don't too

Should have figured out that the show first started in '93 thanks to a date stamp in the Spirit World intelligence report on Tarukane. Thanks Freeze-Frame Bonus.

Now if Funimation can pick up the other movie. Though I don't know if they can do it again and get any of the VAs who may have moved to California back again like Kasey (Shizuru), if she has some role in the other movie.

Wuh, this thread popped out of nowhere. But yeah, loved this show.

@Tobias: I don't think Yusuke is that bad of a guy. I think he's pretty nice actually, just not really good at showing it. Yeah, he's not really a "for justice" kind of hero (just like his teacher), but he does care about his friends, and he doesn't like it when people abuse their power. Though yeah, he's not especially heroic.

His personality ain't very heroic ("I know there's a power-stealing demon on the prowl, but I really want to enjoy the weekend"), but he is sort of a hero in spite if himself, when things come down to it. After all, his first major act in the story was a (pointless) self-sacrifice. His answer to Genkai's little test during the tournament come to mind as well.

Younger Toguro is so cool.

I'll second that.

As his powerset goes, he's basically Frieza, his only shtick being busting out new transformations to make himself stronger, but his personality and relationships to both Genkai and Yusuke more than makes up for his uncreative powers. I would call him the best villain the show's ever had.

The Final Fight with Yomi still gives me goosebumps too.

He lacks the deliciousness of Elder Toguro. Anyway I just found out the dub Toguro bros went on to voice Scar and his brother...how crazy huh

As a fangirl who loves Kuwabara, I sometimes like Shizuru because of her Cool Big Sis personality. However, I would've likened Shizuru more if it weren't for the Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male she inflicted on her baby brother. The way she treated him in some episodes would make South Park's Shelley Marsh feel ashamed of what she always done to her little brother Stan. It's also Fridge Horror that this is probably where Kuwabara's desire to never fight with women came from.

edited 1st Jun '14 7:33:38 PM by Ecclytennysmithylove

Ah, we were chatting about this in the DBZ thread, I remember. :)

It's funny, I found out that the guy who made this series also made Hunterx Hunter, which coincidentally has a similar animation style, and excellent dubbing. I enjoyed both of them, and the moment I saw "Hanzo" I knew that Togashi had SOME influence on Hunterx Hunter. Then, bam, he's the creator of both.

He takes his time with this stuff. Yu Yu Hakusho didn't have any material I'd of considered filler. And I love the characters from both, they've all got these Hidden Depths that make them feel alive. Yusuke's dubbed lines are a real treat.

The fight I linked to between him and Jin, back in the Dark Tournament (who here doesn't know that, of course). That's my second-favorite fight in the series, right behind Yusuke's fight with Dr. Kamiya (those animation frames, holy sh-t).

Why?

Because of Yusuke's line: "Let's see which one of us can take a bigger ass-kicking!"

And his disappointment when Jin negates the attack: "Damn it, at least one of us should have died!"

I was pissed off when I bought a DVD of Season 1 only to learn they re-recorded a decent bi of dub dialogue for the Blu-Ray releases of the four seasons. I'm not sure how much but it is apparently quite noticeable.

Now I have a PS 3 again though, I can finally get those B Rs. I wouldn't even bother with Season 4 but, well, it has the conclusion of Chapter Black. I hate when Season Sets do that... Like, the entire King Piccolo Saga is in just the Season 4 set of DB so that worked out. But here I'll have to get Season 4, with the rather boring Three Kings Arc, just to get the final couple of eps OF CB. Ah well.

I dunno, maybe it's time I gave Three Kings another shot. I saw it once and only once and it was after binging on the entire series. Maybe I was just to burnt out and in love witH Sensui to give it a fair shake.

edited 2nd Jun '14 3:05:00 PM by Nikkolas

Three Kings isn't so bad.

It has a gross lack of Kuwabara, but Yusuke gets a rather interesting conclusion to his character arc. It gave most of the characters some closure, other than Kurama and Yusuke's mother perhaps.

Plus Ogre's final narrations were mad funny.

Three Kings was a drop in quality for the series as a whole, but the anime did an OK job in fixing some of the manga arc's flaws. Namely, in actually showing fights, disappointing as they may have been.

Eh, I already thought Sensui was a massive drop in quality, with bizarre characterization everywhere, random Game-Breaker powers handed out to the villains without any real sense of consistency to the story, and a finale straight out of Dragon Ball Z.

Three Kings wasn't any better, but it managed to not be worse than Sensui either.

edited 3rd Jun '14 9:17:04 AM by TobiasDrake

I agree,but the whole series never really got better than the Dark Tournament which itself dragged on for too long

Only the first season was properly paced.

Sensui was great!

Right up until the ending.

Seriously, I loved his character until that dumbass climax. If not for said dumbass climax, I'd rank Chapter Black as just as good as Dark Tournament.

edited 3rd Jun '14 6:33:25 PM by Nikkolas

Bizzare huh. I did hear that the manga version was pretty lame.

Sensui's voice actor really makes the character I suppose. While it'd of been neat to meet the other personalities, showcasing 3-4 of them made it less of a drag. It didn't feel like, "oh, powerups 1-4", Kazama was more dangerous because Yusuke was tired and because of his weapon, and the moment Yusuke healed, he took Kazama out in a flat second. Someone argued with me once about how lame the reveal of Shinobu was, but eh, the only reason Sacred Energy bugged me was because it rendered the rest of the team's power-ups useless.

The Territory powers were cool - Sniper, in particular, was my favorite, and added mystery and unpredictability to the villain group. Elder Toguro was the one villain who really felt out of place, what with how quickly he was revealed and then dispatched. The anime even did a little "epilogue" for each of the characters introduced in the arc that I found kind of special. I actually felt bad for Sniper, since he apparently just "disappeared" after that arc.

I also liked that Team Urameshi actually got to fight the main villain together for once, even briefly. Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara vs Sensui at first, then Hiei took Yusuke's place in the rematch, which went just as poorly. Yusuke's refusal to bust out the Spirit Gun (until the one moment where it nearly teamkills someone), however, bothered me. In the anime, however, I like how it's portrayed as Yusuke just fighting smarter, until the point where Minoru starts beating the crap out of him. There's a frame where it looks like Yusuke was actually about to fire the Spirit Gun just to fend him off, but Minoru kicks him before he can fire it. Not a case of Forgot About His Powers, I like.

The biggest disappointment for me was that, despite Yusuke's sacrifice, the side characters only aided Sensui's efforts and were pathetic in the battle that followed. The fight could've been longer at least. I hated seeing Hiei get curbstomped by Sensui, even after spamming the DRAGON OF THE DARKNESS FLAME! Not even Sensui's pre-battle jeer about humoring their effort in respect for Yusuke helped.

-

Meanwhile, Three Kings. Yusuke fought Yomi, and had that whole Heroic BSoD that I absolutely loved - the hero not winning at the end? Fabulous. For a guy like Yusuke, getting all introspective and finally realizing "it's not all about fighting", that's serious, humble development. Sure, Yusuke didn't have any connection to Yomi other than being Raizen's descendant, but his only connection to Sensui was his job, and Toguro his mentor. I've always seen Yu Yu Hakusho as a "more nuanced Dragon Ball" so the DBZ-ness never bothered me. Both dubs shared voice actors to.

Kurama vs Shigure... meh, I think the anime made it very dramatic, but Shigure was an important figure in Hiei's past. All I remember about this part was how Crazy-Prepared Kurama was, planting an ancient tree to use in battle. Also disappointing was how he fully embraced his human form - I really wanted to see Yoko Kurama again.

Hiei vs Mukuro - weird, but symbolic, and entertaining.

All in all, the anime version was quite pleasing. I was overjoyed to find out that it was done in the same style as the original Hunter X Hunter anime.

edited 5th Jun '14 9:25:14 PM by FOFD

Yu Yu Hakusho is one rare case where I will say without hesitation that the anime is a universal improvement over the manga. IMO, the manga contains such breakneck pacing that it comes off as a Cliffs Notes version of a larger story. Togashi even lampshades this pacing in the manga, when Yusuke and Kuwabara first arrive at the Saint Beasts' castle.

While most anime filler tends to make a story drag, the YYH filler actually adds proper breathing room for the audience to react, and makes for more effective fight scenes. Look at Hiei's fights during the Dark Tournament, for example. In the manga, he whips out the Do DF after two quick moves from Zeru, and the very instant after Bui removes his armor. The anime gives both of Hiei's opponents more time to show off their capabilities, which actually makes Hiei look somewhat pressured into resorting to his ultimate move, rather than using it haphazardly.

Character-wise, I liked the idea of Sensui more than the execution. The idea of a more idealistic version of Yusuke whose high sense of morality ultimately broke him when the realities of life failed to live up to his expectations was great, and perfect for the tone of the series. Then he came out with a bunch of multiple personalities that he invented in order to purify his soul and attain a Deus ex Machina Ultimate Power that has never even been hinted at existing before, and it just got stupid. And then right after that, Dragon Ball Z happened.

So I liked the idea of Sensui the character as initially presented. Storywise, I disliked most of the plot. It relied too heavily on random Ass Pull retcons^HEY! Suddenly, Genkai actually cares about the fate of the world. Hiei is suddenly more friendly than he's ever been for no reason. Yusuke's weakness is that he's too physically powerful while spiritually weak, when his entire climactic victory against Toguro relied on him being precisely the opposite one story-arc prior. Yusuke is supposed to be bothered by killing the Doctor because taking a life would weigh hard on his conscience, even though he's never been bothered by killing enemies before. The list goes on., spontaneous new mechanics^HEY! The "Domains", specifically, New Powers as the Plot Demands^LISTEN! Kuwabara's dimension sword is literally a new power as the plot demands, with his old powers going into hibernation until whenever would be dramatically appropriate. Also, Yusuke is suddenly retconned into being a demon for no reason for a weak Protagonist Death fakeout, and So Last Season^HEY! Hiei absorbing his Dragon technique is now completely and utterly useless for no reason.

Did they ever say Yusuke had weak spiritual power? I recall that Genkai said he didn't have the strategic intelligence to take on psychics, but not for lack of spiritual power.

There's a cool fanfic [1] detailing why killing Doctor was different for Yusuke. It basically says that killing demons was easier for him. Not sure if you like that explanation, but it fits into canon IIRC. Yusuke not being able to kill Doctor rubbed me the wrong way too, but I could swallow it for that reason. Plus at the same time, I really did dig the way that the conflict that was presented, thanks to the nature of Doctor's powers not allowing him to be knocked out.

As for the domain thing: so they added a new mechanic for a new type of combatant? I see no problem with that. It wasn't a retcon, and didn't feel like an asspull for me, since they introduced it at the beginning of the arc. It's not as though the spiritual world of YYH had been thoroughly explored at any point in the series.

edited 6th Jun '14 9:16:13 AM by DoctorDiabolical

When he's fighting Sensui, Sensui chides him about how he cannot possibly win because he's physically strong, but incredibly weak spiritually. Apparently mastering the Spirit Wave is So Last Season and Yusuke no longer has the incredible reserves of spiritual power that it gave him because reasons.

The Doctor bugs me because Yusuke did kill him. He was totally okay with slaying his enemy in the heat of combat and moving on, it was just Genkai going, "I'm going to resurrect the Doctor so Yusuke doesn't have to bear the weight of taking a human life, because for some reason, I've decided that would bother him." It was part of Genkai's spontaneous transition from Neutral to Good that happened at some point offscreen between the Dark Tournament and the Sensui Saga. From "Let someone else do something noble with my power," to "Hey guys, let's go save the world! Love and puppies!"

And new combatants have always had new powers, but domains weren't powers, they were minigames. The only reason it's even possible to beat these guys is because they permit you to. It's really stupid.

edited 6th Jun '14 9:25:55 AM by TobiasDrake

The Sensui thing comes off as typical villainous gloating, combined with Togashi not wanting to have Yusuke defeat two villains in a row with the same motivational powerup, although I can see why that would still bug you.

The only psychic whose power came off as broken in that way was Kaito, due to being able to disallow violence (or apparently anything else voluntary) in his territory. And he and Game Master were the only ones whose powers were comparable to "minigames." All the other psychic powers had broken elements to them, but they could still be physically fought.

Minoru also said Yusuke couldn't win because of experience. Minoru was simply a better fighter than Yusuke and used that to his advantage against Yusuke's superior raw power.

Sensui was a perfect Evil Counterpart to Yusuke until the whole personalities thing came out. It's Minoru who is a great counterpart to Yusuke while "Shinobu" is just whatever.

Also, i forget where it says this on the wiki, but I'm pretty sure Minoru is stronger than Kazuya and not the other way around like whatever page says he's stronger than Minoru.

edited 6th Jun '14 12:19:02 PM by Nikkolas

Rewatching some of the series, particularly Chapter Black. I never noticed before how much of a direct parallel Kurama's Battle of Wits against Kaito is to Kurama's later very similar situation with Gamemaster.

It's like the narrative equivalent of an antechamber. Do we have a trope for that specifically, or is it more in the general purview of Foreshadowing? I know we have one for the videogame version of it.

edited 7th Mar '15 1:45:45 AM by KnownUnknown