I would argue that leaving the first season off on a cliffhanger is the right move because it forces the suits to renew the show for a second season if it's well-received. You want the fanbase to be demanding a new season as a way to motivate its renewal, and a great cliffhanger of "I threw our fight and only used 20% of my power. Enter the Dark Tournament or I'll kill you and everyone you know" is a good way to get a fanbase wanting more.
And if the show sucks, it doesn't matter where season 1 ends.
Rarely end the first season on a cliffhanger, unless you're absolutely confident that your show is really, really good.
The first season is the part where most writers don't entirely know what they're doing, and most audiences don't entirely know what to expect. You want to start strong, and end stronger, and be self contained if you can so that the audience can look back on the whole experience and judge it as one block. Think of it like a pilot, in multi-episode form.
So while you see foreshadowings and sequel nods at the end of first seasons pretty often, shows tend to beaverse to plots that outright don't go fully resolved and end in cliffhangers for a reason. Not finishing your plot during a period where the audience isn't loyal and doesn't know what to think can easily contribute to the audience going "this show sucks."
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 19th 2021 at 6:10:05 AM
Right. The first season needs to end on a big splash. Something huge and thrilling, something that blows the audience's minds and leaves them wanting more. Tarukane's mansion isn't that.
Honestly, even the Four Saint Beasts feels like it would be rushing through a lot of content. The first season might do well to focus on the period of Yusuke being a Spirit Detective that does actual detective work with Botan and his gadgets. Take the time to develop the characters, maybe throw in some original cases to fill out a few episodes, and close on Yusuke's fight with Hiei. Let Yusuke, Botan, Kuwabara, and Keiko have the opportunity to be fleshed out and developed as characters and let Hiei and Kurama have their moment in the sun as a season's main antagonists before they come back to join Team Urameshi.
The second season can then cover the Genkai Tournament and Four Saint Beasts. Possibly doing some arc welding to mesh the two distinctly separate stories into a single narrative. I don't think either is substantial enough to stand on its own as a full season, and some arc welding would give Hiei and Kurama something to do.
Season three would then spend an episode blowing through Tarukane's mansion to build up the Dark Tournament before focusing its time on that. Season four, Chapter Black. Season five, Three Kings.
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That's really stretching things out for no reason, even more than the anime did. I think the live-action show should stick to the snappier pacing of the manga since live-action pacing lends itself better to short fight scenes and little exposition. Skip all the filler and padding from the anime and really blow through the material.
Live-action pacing fits manga pacing much better than it does anime pacing. If a fight scene lasts longer than 5 minutes in a live-action show, it's dragging on. You can't repeat the same bits of fight choreography over and over again in live-action, recycling limited animation isn't something you have to worry about.
I agree that stretches things out too much. It would also mean that the entire first season of YYH is probably going to feel quite different to what follows, which might be too much I'd say it takes until the Saint Beasts arc for the series to settle into its battle shonen style. There are other fights before it, of course, but the series isn't as 'fight-centric' when Yusuke's doing his detective work.
I'm kind of split on whether the Tarukane mansion is better in season 1 or season 2. I tend to agree that as-is it doesn't fit well as a season 1 finale with all of its set up for what is to come, but I think cramming it and the dark tournament into one season would feel... incredibly rushed. Though that's mostly on the dark tournament, which is going to need a lot of re-writes to fit if its not just episode after episode of bracket fights.
If the mansion subplot is rewritten to appear to be less open ended, it could maybe end with just the cliffhanger of Toguro surviving, leaving the explanation and the rigged betting for the following season when he reappears.
I honestly expect the changes to be quite a bit bigger than your usual manga -> anime adaptation, though. I think plot elements will be changed a lot more than just pacing things around.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the saint beasts cut entirely, or at least majorly downplayed, because they're not that relevant in the grand scheme of things. If you consider the Marvel properties' adaptations to film and comic, they are massively divergent from the original stories, mixing storylines together, or swapping out lesser known villains for more iconic ones.
While I'd expect a Japanese adaptation to be closer to the original than that, I could see it being similar to the Bleach film, which made some pretty decent changes to get it to work narratively.
In that sense, I feel like we'll probably get Toguro in the first season, but maybe appearing in a different plot than Tarukane's mansion.
I think the Genkai tournament would be a good stopping point for season 1. By then all of team Urameshi are introduced, have their powers revealed and have at least one fight (sans Kurama) and Rando makes for a decent fight for a season finale. That's also the point where the first timeskip happens, so it'd be a perfect transition between seasons.
Guys, the Spirit Detective Saga is 26 episodes long. If the live-action episodes are 40-50 minutes long each, the entire thing easily fits into a 12-13 episode season. There's no reason to do mental gymnastics, the arcs are short and there's a very obvious stopping point to lead into season 2.
And that's assuming they go with the anime version, if they do as I've suggested and adapt the manga instead of the anime, they could go up to the Rescue Yukina arc in just 8-10 episodes.
Sometimes, it's better to compress rather than expand.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 19th 2021 at 10:23:43 AM
I think it would be easier to adapt manga into live-action than anime into live-action. Anime tends to be drawn-out and repetitive due to animation limits, whereas manga can just be treated like a storyboard to be followed. And Yu Yu Hakusho is grounded and contemporary enough that it could work in the new medium with little change.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 19th 2021 at 10:30:04 AM
Despite Kuwabara's best scene being his "A mulberry is a tree, Kuwabara is a man" bit, I'm pretty sure he and Yusuke were like 14-16 during the series. Pretty sure he legally and literally is not considered a man at that point.
So I was talking about DBZ dubs and how Sabat's new Piccolo voice (I say "new" but Kai was forever ago now, I guess) is just kind of his normal voice. He certainly dropped the cartoonish gruffness of OG Funi Piccolo.
I wonder if YYH was redubbed or got a sequel or something today, would he make Kuwabara sound less...goofy? Would you want that?
The YYH dub was a product of its time and did certain unpardonable dub crimes like giving characters accents, such as Chu being a demon Australian. Tehey most certainly wouldn't do that today, either.
I think the four beast is probably better cut, aside the fact it would be weird given two of the beasts are monsters which isnt a good thing to a live action and is kinda sorta filler.
Granted that can also be a lost because the four beast is when the team act.....well, like a team.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"The YYH dub was a product of its time
I don't want YYH re-dubbed or given the Kai treatment for this reason. That dub doesn't need to be redone. There's not a single vocal performance in it that I disliked. At best a new dub would just mean having to switch out Linda Young as Genkai, and any actors who aren't willing to come back to re-voice the characters, and that'd just bring the whole thing back down.
Compared to Dragon Ball there aren't as many glaringly goofy lines in YYH. Kuwabara crying at Yusuke's funeral, Yusuke's trash-talking of the various villains, Sensui's speeches are all still pretty impactful. Chu's accent, Botan's upbeat personality, and Hiei's edginess are still hilarious. The animation is still pretty good for its time as well, so it definitely doesn't need the DB Kai treatment.
It's like Naoki Urasawa's Monster, Ruroni Kenshin, Trigun, G-Gundam, Big O, or Cowboy Bebop. Nobody needs to re-dub those and there'd be a vocal reckoning if they did unless there was overwhelming reason to do so.
Edited by FOFD on Jul 5th 2021 at 6:18:29 AM
Throw Gundam Wing in there and I agree wholeheartedly.
The fact they had totally new voices is why I never watched any of the Samurai X films. RK's dub was a lot rougher in parts than YYH's, though. I also think it came out a bit earlier but I can't recall. It's still good but YYH was a tier above.
Also the dub could not keep the name scheme right for Kenny's master. To this day I'm not sure if it's Seijuro Hiko or Hiko Seijuro as they used both.
Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 5th 2021 at 3:25:51 AM
Shizuru is so awesome, I can see why they had her in the anime DT Arc and not Yusuke's mom who is the biggest failure. I wanna feel sorry for her but she was prominent for one arc and was the most useless character in that arc. Can't even kiss her own son and leaves his corpse buried in trash. Thank god Twitter outrage didn't exist yet or she'd get the Endeavor treatment.
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They were both present in the manga. I don't know where this misinformation came from that Shizuru replaced Yusuke's mom, but it's just not true. She was at the Dark Tournament in the manga, and so was Yusuke's mom.
And, remember, Yusuke's mom had him when she was 14. And she had some great moments in the manga during the Dark Tournament. There's also a scene between her and Yusuke's dad at the end of the manga that the anime cut out.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jul 15th 2021 at 1:27:00 AM
Fair eniugh but as for her rough life, I already said I wanted to sympathize with her but this is ultimately fiction. We only care when we are made to. If a character is constantly shitty, no one will like them or want them around.
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An obsessive, "moralistic" argument for why a character is shit and will always be shit. It's irrational, petty and a better example might be Bakugo's mom. She's a similarly minor character with far fewer flaws than Atsuko but some dregs of the internet love to abuse her and blame her for everything. If YYH came out now, I have no doubt Atsuko would be constantly trashed by this type.
In different news, I haven't looked at a YYH fanon power level chart in years but I recall them putting Kazuya over Minoru. Sensui's Minoru personality has way more impressive feats with martial arts mastery, stronger energy than Yusuke, and it took Yusuke forever to get the advantage. Kaz got off one surprise attack and once Yusuke recovered he destroyed Kaz with ease.
Yeah, Kazuya is pretty clearly stated to be weaker than Minoru.
And I really would recommend reading the manga, Atsuko gets a bunch of scenes the anime didn't include that really hint at some deeper characterization. And really, the worst you can say about her is that she lets trash build up around the house and didn't bother to keep her son's corpse clean. Even just losing Yusuke in the first place must have been traumatizing to her and she was already not in a great place before he died.
I didn't really pick up much more from the manga in comparison. But to be honest, I don't see her as very different, personality-wise, from her son. She was just already given up before he died. I got the impression that him coming back to life helped her turn her own life around and become a better... roommate is probably the best term. Although, given the typical standards of cartoon parenting, her parenting after his resurrection is decent.
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I don't think closing on a cliffhanger for a series that doesn't have a guaranteed audience is a good idea.
Also, from a pacing sense, the climactic battle with Suzaku makes for a stronger season finale than Yusuke and Kuwabara's half-assed curbstomp of Tarukane's stronghold. Sure, Rescue Yukina has the Toguro fight, but that's it.
TV shows are supposed to ramp up the intensity over the course of the season, raising the stakes and building the tension until the finale serves as the climactic apex. In that regard, Tarukane's mansion doesn't even compare to the Four Saint Beasts. It's all just setup for the next arc.
Rescue Yukina fits better as a season premiere, serving to reintroduce how awesome these characters are by showing off how easily Yusuke and Kuwabara tear through them. It would be a terribly disappointing season finale, and in terms of climactic tension, it just doesn't hold a candle to the Four Saint Beasts.
And if the show doesn't get renewed for a second season (which is a valid possibility), closing on the Four Saint Beasts doesn't leave plot points unresolved forever. The story can simply end there if it must.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 19th 2021 at 9:24:02 AM
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