Yu Yu Hakusho Review

Yu Yu Hakusho is a series that holds a special place to me. It was one of the fighting shonen anime I watched back in high school when I was in my anti battle shonen anime phase when I watching stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell and thought fighting shonen was incredibly lame. I watched this series 11 years ago, and I recall really enjoying it, I remember how watching it back in high school really felt like some grand epic adventure, so now 11 years later, what do I think of it? I do think YYH is a good show overall with some great character interactions, interesting villains, and a fantastic first half but it faulters a good deal later on in the series which I will explain more later on like my past fighting shonen anime reviews I will rate each individual saga/arc, give my thoughts, and then give an individual rating while giving an overall score for the series as a whole. 

Spirit Detective Saga - 8 out of 10. This saga has one of the greatest starts to an anime I have ever seen, and how does it engage me so well? It starts off with pondering with the age old question, what happens when you die? It's a question I think of from time to time and YYH's early episodes do a good job at exploring those ideas. It really hits home when Yusuke Uremeshi, the protagonist of the show was a good for nothing deliquent that did something no one else would actually do, and actually saved someone who was never really in need despite appearing to be so. It only gets more interesting from there since Yusuke thought the entire time no one ever really cared for him but in fact, people actually did and it makes his sudden death in the first episode seem all the more tragic. These episodes also do an incredible job at establishing the characters surronding Yusuke like Keiko Yukimura and Kazuma Kuwarbara outside of the Yusuke's mom, everyone feels reasonably fleshed out especially the first two characters I mentioned.Keiko might seem like generic childhood friend character that you often see with anime starring teenagers as the protagonist, but she stands out much more than them since really goes out of her way to ressurect Yusuke like going into a burning house just to make sure Yusuke bodies doesn't get burned before he can be brought back, and just how committed she in helping him despite Yusuke coming off as a jerk to her. Kuwabara has a macho code of honor that could come off as a bit cheesy but since he is so committed to following it and never once betrays that rule, he comes off as a really endearing character. Kuwabara has so much conviction in how much he follows his code that he is likeable and a character you can't help but respect like when the school teachers threaten to expell one of Kuwabara's friends if the latter raises his hands on someone. Yusuke does eventually get ressurected from there, and the story does some enjoyable and lighthearted adventures until the characters of Hiei and Kurama get introduced and once again, these two characters are incredibly well written. They start off as villains with Kurama's sympathetic side being foreshadowed early on with him willing to turning himself over to Yusuke if the latter helps his mom and Hiei showing off how fiesty he is by challenging Yusuke to a fight after Hiei kidnapping Keiko. The fight was decent enough and the way Yusuke defeats Hiei is clever too. Hiei is a male tsundere much like Vegeta from Dragon Ball and the thing with YYH is that even if the characters can appear to be sterotypical, the way they are written with how they interact with other characters make them very likeable and engaging to watch. Hiei and Kurama no show for a while and Yusuke eventually meets up with Genkai who will play a big role later and she also has some very entertaining interactions with Yusuke and later on Kuwabara. The Rando tournament episodes are all solid enough and my only big gripe with it is that the final fight with Rando ends pretty anti climatically and it felt like Yusuke needed to win somehow despite him clearly being at a disadvantage, so Rando gets defeated with Yusuke's ears being clogged which doesn't make any sense since Rando has killed many people and they never had their ears clogged with blood when they were defeated and killed? It's decent but the ending was rather anti climatic. Next is the four Saint Beasts was a good introductory section to introduce the four lead characters of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei, the character dynamics with them are great and they make for the most entertaining character group in anime. The fights with Saint Beasts themselves are decent and the episodes do a good job at establishing the stakes with human world being infected by the Makai insects. The character interactions sells most of these episodes even if the villains can be a little too one note since they are obsticles rather than fully fleshed out characters but they do their job decently enough. The only issue with these episodes is that Yusuke's fight with Suzaku ends in a rather strange way with it making look like Yusuke will die again to defeat Suzaku but that turning out to be a red herring, this will become a bigger issue later in the series. Finally, to end off this Saga, it's the Demon Mansion raid, and it's pretty solid and does the same as the 4 Saint Beasts did and introduce a bunch of one note jobber villains for Yusuke and Kuwabara to fight, but this section also introduces the first villains outside of Hiei and Kurama to surivive more than one encounter against Yusuke. It also does a good at establishing Yukina and Hiei's relationship to her but Kuwabara's attachment and love towards her can come off as a bit too cheesey for my liking since it comes off as this weird puppy dog love of sorts. Anyway, I have talked about this Saga long enough and it's time to move on to the Dark Tournament. 

Dark Tournament Saga - 9 out of 10. Honestly, when it comes to stories like this, Dark Tournament ticks all the boxes when it comes to being engaging. It has a great main villain through Younger Toguro and the Saga does an amazing job at establishing him to be a sympathetic or "anti villain" of sorts by having him be very polite. Like when the Saga first starts, it begins with Toguro destroying a construction site with not many people looking so Toguro right away you can tell isn't a cold blooded killer who enjoys killing people. It doesn't end there either, he always apologizes to the people he didn't want to kill and he even refers to Sakyo as "Mister" even though Toguro can kill him at any time. He even kills his older brother later on when he kept interfering with his fight against Yusuke. Outside of Toguro, the Saga always manages to mix things up by putting Team Uremeshi at constant disadvantages throughout the whole Dark Tournament, which keeps the stakes high and keeps the tension strong since the Tournament committe really wants them dead, it isn't really until the fight with Team Toguro where Team Uremeshi is put in a fair fight, and each fight with the invitable fight between Yusuke and Toguro's teams are great, Kuwabara and Elder Toguro, Karasu and Kurama, Hiei and Bui all have good connections to put more investment in their respective fights. Kurama's fear of Karasu, Kuwarbara needing to pull his wight, and Bui's hatred for Toguro are stories told well in their respective fights. Koenma and Jorge's interactions works for great comic relief and they are very entertaining duo. The saga also raises the stakes towards the end with Sakyo putting a tunnel between human and demon world so it gives Yusuke even more reason to beat Toguro outside of the smaller stakes of Toguro threatning to kill Yusuke's friends and family. Genkai is also much more fleshed out here and is a great character by having a personal connection with Toguro, and it also does a good job at showing how important it is to cherish the people you love over material gain since Toguro gave up everything for it. There isn't a whole lot of criticism I can give this saga except towards the end of it. The first issue is that Genkai being masked was kind of pointless since it was pretty obvious from the start that it was her, and everyone eventually figured it out anyway, and the biggest issue I have with the saga and it becomes a big issue later on in the series is the red herring "deaths". Both Genkai and Kuwarabara was built up that they were going to die and it was retified later and they got brought back. Kuwabara I can somewhat look past but Genkai makes no sense since the series was building up towards her death and it all turned out to be a lie. That Koenma and Toguro actually had time to arrange Genkai's body from not being destroyed so she can be brought back to life, the whole thing felt like because Togashi was too scared of actually killing off any major characters, Genkai also becomes a side character later in the show anyway, this will become a bigger issue later and now lets get to the next saga. 

Chapter Black Saga - 7 out of 10. This is a strange saga because it's definately something that is carried on it's back by it's main villain Sensui. To put it simiply, when Sensui is involved or when he is on screen, the saga is an 8 out of 10, but whenever he is not involved or on screen, it is a 6 out of 10. The saga starts off pretty decently overall with Genkai showing off the to Yusuke and the gang that random teenagers have super powers but questions start getting asked immediately when Hiei gets written out of the plot because Koenma told him that there are stronger demons than him, this could make for an interesting arc where Hiei struggles if humanity is worth defending or not but he no shows for a while and then randomly shows up to help Yusuke so it felt like a missed opportunity. What I do like about this saga is how much Sensui's action puts Yusuke in situations that they don't want to be in, and are often forced in life or death fights that kind of prove Sensui's points that humanity is a barbaric race focused on self destruction. Much of these themes carries this saga for me. Some more questionable writing starts happening when Kuwabara decides to randomly ditch Yusuke and the crew to go to a Metallica concert and it feels questionable since the world is able to end and Kuwabara decides to go to a concert with his friends? And that Yusuke actually didn't keep a watch on him? It all feels like a contrived way for Kuwabara to get new powers without getting upstaged by the other characters since his Spirit Sword abilites are pretty useless by the time you reach this point in the story. I also feel like the saga doesn't involve Kurama, Hiei, Kuwabara and Genkai as much as the Dark Tournament since they all had clear roles in that saga, here most of the time it feels like they are on the sidelines. Another issue is Yusuke's battle with Sniper since his powers are pretty ambigious and lacks rules. It's established that he can use makeshift weapons and needs to aim to use his powers yet a good number of his abilties requires him not to aim like moving knives and trucks that can home in, so it makes what could be a good fight into me asking questions. I might as well, say some more positives before getting negative is that Sensui's backstory and his fights with Yusuke are great and like I said before he is an interesting villain in that he uses humanity's knack for causing destruction or the dark side of humanity in general to manipulate people to do his bidding, and as a result he makes characters like Kurama kill Gamemaster who was just a little kid, and whenever this arc heavily involves Sensui in anything, it's great and it always raises interesting philsopshical questions. Koenma is also much better here than he was before, he might've come off as snotty brat in previous sagas but here is much more fleshed out and interesting in that he has to take responsility for his mistakes regarding Sensui and putting the world in danger. I will finally get to the issue I have been alluding to the whole time, and that is the "deaths" and lack their of any. Togashi has a big issue of killing off characters who are only pure evil like Gourmet and Elder Toguro, and every time a character is not pure evil, they either get a face turn or get an off screen ressurection. I was willing to forgive this before, but with Chapter Black being the darkest saga in the series, this becomes a lot harder to ignore. It gets really silly with how much stuff like Kurama killing Gamemaster turned out to be a red herring or Hiei killing Sniper. Then there is Yusuke being a descendant of ancient group of demons which comes out of nowhere and is only there because killing off  Yusuke twice would be silly but it also gets in the way in the fact that Hiei, Kurama and Kuwabara were willing to do anything to avenge Yusuke and that plight also turned out to be a lie. I still enjoy this saga but it's mainly due to Sensui and the philsophical questions it raises, take that away and I would not enjoy this saga nearly as much. 

3 Kings Saga - 6 out of 10. This has to be by far be the most disappointing saga in the whole show and it feels Togashi just wanted the series to end at this point. I hear this saga is even more incoherent in the manga. But before I start tearing into it, I'll start with the good, it starts off pretty well with Yusuke becoming so disillusioned of living a normal life after his battle with Sensui that he is in some ways slowly becoming the battle crazed demon that he spent the whole series getting rid of when he tried to rationalize demons eating humans like how humans eat meat, I felt the arc was going to interesting places. The conviences get a little too much for my liking with Kurama, Hiei and Yusuke all being connected to a major King, but there are things I enjoy the long awaited backstory reveal for Hiei which is pretty solid and finally answers some questions regarding him, and the whole Cold War esque tension regarding the 3 Kings was interesting enough and it kept the stakes high, but the saga goes downhill when Raizen dies and then Yusuke tries to wrap things up in a fighting tournament that I am surprised anyone would agree to. What's worse is that no one in the tournament is even that interested in winning for nefarious purposes or anything that would cause tension between human and demon world, it all just feels like they are fighting for the fun of it, which is a far cry from the Dark Tournament with Sayko putting a whole between human and demon world. There is no tension from here on out and Yusuke doesn't even seem interested winning the Tournament and he loses his fight with Yomi making it even hard to care what happens later, and Yomi loses his fight later which loses any kind of investment this saga had left, and then it ends with one of Raizen's friends winning he got introduced super later into the story by the way and he says there will be no trouble in human and demon world, and I am surprised anyone would agree to these terms considering how Raizen died. The ending to the show overall feels anti climatic and feels like there was more to come but nothing came of it. 

Overall, YYH while good is carried by it's character interactions and mostly interesting villains. The show in general feels like diminishing returns the anime, and while I can say I like it, I feel like some people in the anime community can overhype it a good deal. I enjoyed my time with it but I can't help but say I wanted more in some respects.