DaWaRou Posts: YuYu Hakusho

Hey, so you guys remember last week when I made that big stink about shonen idiot heroes? Well...I forgot to mention my absolute favorite shonen idiot of all time! Funny how that happens, ain't it? Anyways, this time I'll be going over him AND his series which happens to hold the spot as my FAVORITE anime of all time. Also, the creator of it is married to the creator of Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon, so that makes it really cool! Ladies and Gents, I'm John Cortez and this is my TENTH post for...The Broken Infinite.

SO, the series we'll be going over today is MY favorite and pretty much the favorite of almost EVERYONE who grew up watching Toonami on Cartoon Network...you know back when it didn't suck ass. Let's not waste any time then in getting to the one and only YuYu Hakusho!!!!!!!!

Sorry if the picture is shitty, I need to replace my computer screen. ANYWAYS, originally written and drawn as a manga by Yoshihiro Togashi in December of 1990 and finishing in 1994 with an anime adaption running for 112 episodes from the years 1992 to 1995 this is the series that most of us in America grew up with during Toonami's run on Cartoon Network during it's golden years...oh how I miss those golden years. This is also, to my knowledge, the series that put Togashi-sensei on the map though what the hell do I know. Also...and it pains me to say this, Togashi-sensei was the instructor of Masashi Kishimoto...the hack who ripped off Ninku to write Naruto.

The plot is this: Yusuke Urameshi (pronounced YUrameshi in FUNimation's English dub to perhaps keep the YuYu part of the title in the series) is a delinquent and a thug who skips school (and smokes in the manga). He's got a foul temper and is a tough fighter and most people are scared to death of him or hate his guts. Then, despite everything he is and has going against his type, Yusuke makes the ultimate sacrifice when he dies trying to save a little boy from an oncoming car. Greeted by a friendly and bubbly Shinigami or Grim Reaper named Botan (who in the dub has a kind of British accent despite the series taking place in Japan) who tells him that not only was his sacrifice "a complete and utter waste" as the child would've survived even without Yusuke's interference, the Spirit World where Humans go when they die has no place for him and that his death was completely unpredictable and unforeseen. Better still, since they've no place for him, the big man in charge has decided to give Yusuke a second chance at life. To make a long story short, Yusuke comes back to life as the Spirit Detective but is more like their hit man. Yusuke's sent on missions to stop Yokai (translated as Demons or Apparitions in the English translations) from having their way in the Human world. On most cases, Yusuke's joined by Kazuma Kuwabara, his best friend and rival who's very sensetive to the spiritual and supernatural, Kurama, (MY FAVORITE CHARACTER) a fox spirit who's fused with a Human body and is largely the brains of the team and Hiei, a cynical Yokai with a thing for swords and fire who was one of Yusuke's earliest foes.

Now...ZOMG! THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ANIME SERIES EVER CREATED! DEAR LORD! IT'S SHONEN! YES IT'S SO SHONEN BUT IT'S FUCKING AMAZING SHONEN! HONESTLY THIS SHOW IS ONE OF THE BEST OF OLD SCHOOL ANIME! DEAR GOD! I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE IT! IT'S LIKE SEVEN SHADES OF AWESOME! NO IT'S LIKE 7 TRILLION SHADES OF AWESOMESAUCE BADASSERY!

*Ahem* Now, when it comes to how the show and the manga look, both are pretty decent looking, though I like the anime's visuals better because of the color and the fluidity of the animation...like when Kurama first pulled out his signature rose whip from his hair, you could practically see each strand of it as he flipped it. As far as the music goes....*faints from the orgasmic music pieces* Okay, most of it isn't all that great but it is really good. The opening and first ending rock with the ending kind of giving me disco vibes for some reason. The second ending is my favorite but not as much as THIS VERSION OF THE THIRD ENDING DONE BY MY FAVORITE JAPANESE BOY BAND LEAD!

But above all are all the character image songs attached to the series. Once again I find myself flabbergasted at the sheer amount of good vocals. Are all Japanese people just blessed with amazing singing voices? Not to be left out too though is the dub of this series. The English Dub for YuYu Hakusho is the absolute best I've ever heard and this is coming from someone with a preference for the original Japanese audio of most anime. In the case of this particular series, I find the original language to be rather...flat. It's not like it's baaad. No, it isn't bad by any stretch of the word, it's just...very direct. The series tells you everything you need to know upfront and from what I've seen of the subtitles it isn't very subtle either. It's a lot of stating the obvious to be honest and the characters also come of as a little stupid and immature. This in direct contrast to the English dub by FUNimation Entertainment which plays a little loose with the translations and breathes some fresh air into these beloved characters. That's not to say that it's perfect because, hell no series (except MAYBE Puella Magi Madoka Magica) is but YuYu Hakusho just has more going for it than against it.

Now the flaws of YuYu Hakusho are...relatively few in number but important, to me anyways. First of all, one gets the feeling that at least as far as the manga goes, Togashi wasn't quite sure what kind of series he wanted to write. It starts off with ghost Yusuke and Botan helping random spirits or people get over whatever emotional problems they have until Yusuke comes back and then it's all like "Time to become a shonen action manga!" with the introduction of everyone's favorite demon pair Hiei and Kurama. Another factor is the Detective Items Yusuke gets at the start and this was actually left intact in the anime. As Yusuke is still new to using Spirit Energy or Reiki as it's called in the manga, he was supposed to be using special items that'd give him a bit of a boost and allow him to adjust to using these new powers. This is very quickly scrapped and even when the items make their grand reentry to the series in the third season, it's still kind of...meh. Next is the Chapter Black arc. While this is the best season of the series in terms of substance over flash, it comes literally out of nowhere with no real build up to it, but then again I think the only season to have much buildup anyways was the last season. It's all like "oh Yusuke's been kidnapped, oh there are new Psychics, oh the former SPOILER is trying to SPOILER and destroy the Human world!" and while it is good, it's still a bit...sudden. I'll also say that the ending of the manga was a bit of a let down since Togashi was rushed and couldn't end it the way he wanted to, and this is one of the few times where the anime is better than it's manga counterpart.

Oh my god, there are so many positive aspects of this series I'm not even sure if I'm capable of listing them all. First of all, I love love love the animation of this series. It's from the 90's which automatically makes it look nice to me but I just love looking at it. Next come the characters. Now I'll be the first of many fans of this show to say that it's not the unique and original masterpiece that the world thinks it to be. In reality it's...not. YuYu Hakusho is one of the most nostalgic great long running shonen series and even Japan recognized this as it was the only shonen series at the time to even be in the same league as that shitstorm known as DragonBallZ. A lot of overlap can be seen with the characters with Yusuke being Goku, Kuwabara as Krillin, Hiei as Vegeta and...maybe Kurama as Future Trunks...only, you know, the characters from YuYu Hakusho are WAY cooler. By FAR the best thing to come from 90's was, in my personal opinion, badass Bishonen characters. Characters like....THIS!

Ladies and gents, THIS is Kurama and he is BADFUCKINGASS!! He's pretty as hell, he looks like a woman and he's got a thing for roses...roses that HE TRANSFORMS INTO WHIPS TO KILL PEOPLE WITH! He's got an even better looking form but this will do. An interesting thing about this series and many series that followed in it's wake is that it doesn't really go for the manly badass design for it's characters, presumably so that the females have some nice eyecandy. This series uses a more...bishonen design for it's characters, well except for Kuwabara, the weakest and most masculine looking of the main characters. Getting back on track, the characters for YuYu Hakusho are all super memorable from the wise ass Yusuke, the lovably clueless Kuwabara, the cryptic and antisocial Hiei and of course the beautiful and charming Kurama but that's not all. While this series is a shonen classic and known for it's awesome fights, one of the things I actually like the most about this series is it's female characters. Shonen series with badass female characters are few and far between with the standouts in my book being Bleach, One Piece, Negima, Omamori Himari, Flame of Recca and Ranma 1/2. That's 6 out of thousands and three of these series are technically harem series as well.. Now YuYu Hakusho's female characters might not all be badass, in fact...I think only 2 of them are the old Psychic Genkai and Demon "King" Mukuro but I personally loved Hiei's sister Yukina, Kuwabara's sister Shizuru, Koenma's employee Botan and Yusuke's girlfriend Keiko who I really would've liked to have gotten something resembling a character arc but what we got was good enough. While no one here is original, I do have to give the show credit for breathing life into the character archetypes that are utilized. And then the thing that everyone won't shut up, besides the Dark Tournament is the famous Chapter Black saga. In this season, our heroes find themselves facing not Yokai and Demons but Humans, though they're anything but regular and ordinary. These humans are endowed with special powers and are fighting not for us but against all of Humanity. The heroes and we as the audience get swept up in a world of moral greys when before it was all blacks and whites. The fights are SUPERB! Always creative and involving each fight in this series is an intense ride and you don't want to miss a single one.

If you get down to this part of the review and you think that it's a bit...well, bland, that's because it's hard for me to really get into what makes this series great as well as the fact that most of us have already seen it. In the end, YuYu Hakusho is just something that needs to be fully experienced. I feel like I did this post the way Yusuke does things, "half-assed" so I'll leave it all like this. Until next week, DaWaRou~!