Anime/Yu Yu Hakusho [Revived]

Yeah, I'm with Saiga on the Yukina thing.

The Yukina thing has aged pretty poorly.

I do believe he's sincere about it. He was literally able to look into her past and see her suffering, but the whole he's simping (shit, I used that term) for her and she has no clue trope is not looked on as kindly these days.

I'd be fine with Kuwabara's aggressive persistence towards Yukina if it was acknowledged as a bad thing he had to overcome, but it's not clear the writer even realized there was anything wrong with this behavior. Yukina's response to Kuwabara more or less declaring himself her boyfriend is basically to go, "I guess we're doing this now."

She's entirely unfazed by his behavior, relentlessly kind to him in a noncommittal way, and it's left to the audience to decide for themselves whether this is a REAL TRUE EPIC LOVE FOR THE AGES. She doesn't participate in the romance that she makes up one half of, but Kuwabara isn't bothered by that in the slightest and it feels like you, the audience, aren't supposed to be either.

In fact, she doesn't participate in much at all; her relationship with Hiei similarly treats her participation in the subplot centered around her as unnecessary. She's basically a Kindness Lamp.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 28th 2021 at 8:28:38 AM

Pretty much yeah. I think it's a product of the times, when writers did this shit and didn't realize people would eventually start to realize it's kinda shady.

Lots of characters have been flat out destroyed by that.

I think Yukina has a few moments where she is noticeably closer to Kuwabara than anyone else. She's definitely not put off by him, I always saw it as a really cute relationship.

I also love that moment where she tells Hiei that she would be fine with him murdering the entire Ice Demon village they came from and has considered doing so herself.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on May 28th 2021 at 8:33:28 AM

Um... I dont think there is anything wrong. Sure Kuwabara IS intense with his crush. But at no point does he force her to love him and I think he would move on if he was indeed rejected.

The moment where he apologizes on behalf of humankind and she tells him that she knows not all humans are evil is the moment his crush went from simple infatuation to genuine pure wholesome love.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on May 28th 2021 at 10:06:14 AM

I never got any bad vibes from Kuwabara either. Teenagers like showing off for their crushes, what else is new?

Edited by HamburgerTime on May 28th 2021 at 12:09:35 PM

I forgot Takenaka has the same dub voice as Dragon Ball's awesome grandfatherly narrator. Very fitting.

I like that Togashi had at least one teacher who really cared about Yusuke and tried to help him.

Edited by Nikkolas on May 31st 2021 at 11:27:04 AM

So, it looks like the Netflix live-action series has begun filming.

I hope it keeps Keiko's toughness from the manga (and is even slightly good, but that goes without saying and is a long shot). Depending on episode length, they could probably adapt the manga at a much brisker pace than the anime did.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 15th 2021 at 1:26:12 AM

“Takumi Kitamura is playing Yusuke…”

“I have no idea who this is.”

This guy?

I thought the Netflix Bleach film was good, so the fact that it's Netflix Japan gives me some hope this could turn out good.

I think so, but I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd. Yusuke will probably be his first big role seen internationally unless I’m an ignoramus that missed another big project he did internationally.

Kuwabara is the Krillin/Yamcha of the group; not a alien and never the strongest of the fighters, but is at least able to keep up with them and inspire the rest to fight on even when he is out of his depth. I didn't actually read/watch to the end, but I heard that he takes Yuske's job as Spirit Detective when the half-demon decides to stay in daddy's town afterwards. I like the idea that he continues on taking care of things in the Mortal Realm with Botan to advise him.

That's new. I never heard of that. What I do know is that after Yusuke goes full demon and Genkai dies, Kuwabara becomes the strongest human....which means he's still pretty irrelevant.

So yeah, Krillin/Yamcha of the series. Though I think he won more fights.

Kuwabara defeated the Elder Toguro in the Dark Tournament, and it was outright stated that both of the Toguro brothers were stronger than Karasu and Bui. Kuwabara beat an opponent who was stronger than both of Kurama and Hiei's big final opponents.

Plus, Kuwabara's Dimension Sword is far and away the strongest ability any of the four of them ever had.

For the end of the Dark Tournament and the fight with Sensui, Kuwabara was just as strong as Hiei and Kurama, if not even stronger.

Kuwabara isn't Yu Yu Hakusho's Krillin or Yamcha, he's the Gohan. Insane potential, does some crazy shit, retires early to study.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 18th 2021 at 5:42:37 AM

He was actually only about high B class when he, Kurama and Hiei fought Sensui.

I won't argue the point about Elder Sensui. He did win that fight, even if Elder Sensui survived and the younger brother finished him off.

Kuwabara's enemies have an annoying tendency to reveal they were still alive even after the fight is over.

The primary reason Kuwabara isn’t Krillin and certainly isn’t Yamcha is that YYH isn’t that kind of show. I don’t remember if I brought it up here or on another, but in terms of characters getting stronger YYH wasn’t quite like the average shounen of its day where one or two characters were strong enough to do everything and everyone around them eventually phased out to be unable to do anything.

In terms of power, YYH is structured more like a JRPG: if you’re in the party, you level up. Everyone present in “the party” of an arc is going to get something awesome to do, some huge feat against some impossible enemy, and is going to get some kind of dramatic power up to a new echelon so that they can keep up and contribute action to the story.

Kuwabara is weaker than the others, but is always in the party and so never reaches the point where he’s so weak in comparison that he can’t contribute. He’s always given a bad guy he can defeat, a new power he can use, a moment where he breaks everybody’s expectations, etc. This only changes when the series penned an arc wherein Kuwabara - a human - has no in to be relevant since it was about demon politics, so Kuwabara sat the arc out, it was decided that he would be retired offscreen, and he thus fell significantly behind for the first time. Had that arc been about something that Kuwabara could actually be relevant to and thus had been there, there’s not much reason not to believe that he wouldn’t have gotten some buff to fight lower-S ranks or something, since that’s just the way the series is written.

But iirc, in the manga the next time something general and dangerous happened he was back fighting those elite spirit world soldier dudes and nobody batted an eye.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 18th 2021 at 8:19:14 AM

I made no comment about Kuwabara's strength. I noted I dislike his power, personality, and how his fights are written. Whether he's weaker than the other three or not doesn't factor into it all for me. He's just not a well done character to me.

Ok. Fair enough.

"Kamatari in RK is at least a funny and charismatic character. He's the least of RK's problems with women. He has a reason to exist and he's a good character. "

Kamatari is off in some way, the anime did joke with is condiction but overall it treat with respect, specially with the fact kamatari fear about never matching saoujiro or yumi as shisho second and a least is treat as lethal combatent.

"I'm not actually sure where "Yusuke is all about strength" came from. "

If I have to pick is probably because yuske is the most overly agresive of all four: hiei answer is to crush everything with overwhelming power fast, Kurama often plan a head and Kuwabara often just get punch until he wins, meanwhile yusque often can punch is way out and his power rasengan can knock most threats.

And yukina...yeah, yukina dosent even see aware about it, I guess is "endering" because kawabara going over the top most of the time is seen as silly.

"Had that arc been about something that Kuwabara could actually be relevant to and thus had been there, there’s not much reason not to believe that he wouldn’t have gotten some buff to fight lower-S ranks or something, since that’s just the way the series is written."

It dosent help that in anime at least it did some weird stuff like letting some filler chararter for the dark tournament to become as strong as toguro in one year, it was jarring as hell.

Wait, what? Elder Toguro deliberately threw the fight against Kuwabara. You can't say that as evidence that Kuwabara was stronger, the match was fixed.

And Hiei completely stomped Bui with his power-up, I think it's pretty obvious he's above Kuwabara.

What? You're mixing up the Elder and Younger Toguro. I'm talking about when Kuwabara fought the Elder Toguro 1-v-1 in the Dark Tournament, not the fight in the Rescue Yukina arc. The latter was thrown, Kuwabara won the former legit, the Elder Toguro barely escaped being vaporized by Kuwabara by hiding in the ground.