Yu Yu Hakusho

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

To me, this is the pinnacle of how to to a good battle-oriented shounen series, in that its honestly not all that battle-oriented for something being in the action shounen genre. It does have its fair share of action, but it also focuses a ton of the characters and their backgrounds, and it generally has very clever writing behind it, so much so to the point that I'm willing to bet that even our resident shounen hater (aka Foggle ) would have a hard time finding too much to fault this particular series for. It generally has what most shounen series in the same genre lack, and that's substance....good substance. It always has something interesting going on, never wastes time with pointless fan-service, and is generally focused on having interesting characters and plots. What this series especially deserves credit for its how it develops its villains. Its a well-known fact that YYH's main villains are, often-times, even more interesting than its heros. That's not to say that the main bunch isn't a fun group to stick through the show with, but to me, its YYH's villains more than anything else that truly make its cast work so well.

There are just too many great things that I can say about this show. What about negatives? Well, I won't pretend like its flawless, there are some weaker aspects to this show, but I'll share my thoughts on those later. For now, I would like to once again have at least a little bit of serious discussion as to the quality of this show. For me, its a great show that stands out from other shounen. Perhaps some would disagree, and I would love the input of opinions of people who feel that way about the show, but I would also like to read other people's current thoughts on this series in general.

I can say for certain that this is one of the few animated shows that I can never get tired of, and now matter how much time passes, its quality just completely fails to lower at all for me, upon numerous repeated viewings. Its a series that I can safel say is above the veil of nostalgia. For me, at the very least, its a timeless classic.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I wish I had money to finish collecting this show on DVD. I was right near the end of the Dark Tournament, too.

Oh well, it's still a great show. One of the best cases for anime made from manga source material there is, as it actually improved upon the source material.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You know, maybe its just me, but it wasn't until after a few re-viewings of the series that I realized how well-crafted of a villain Sakyo is in the anime, specifically. He's the real brains behind Toguro, the essential reason for why Sensui turned out the way that he did, and basically serves as a mastermind who really made his own way to the top of the criminal underground. I kind of wish that he had a bit more importance in his role in the series, and that he his character had been expanded upon some more, not necessarily with more back-story, since I kind of liked the mysterious sort of resonance about his character, but more so in terms of just being fleshed out some more in his personality. He may not have been on screen very often, and when he was on screen it certainly wasn't for very long, but he was always interesting to watch, and the scenes he was in were always that much more interesting for me just because of his presence, with him being their in the middle of the situation.

Anyone else have any thoughts on Sakyo, or any other villains in the series?

[talonmalon333]

You know, maybe its just me, but it wasn't until after a few re-viewings of the series that I realized how well-crafted of a villain Sakyo is in the anime, specifically. He's the real brains behind Toguro, the essential reason for why Sensui turned out the way that he did, and basically serves as a mastermind who really made his own way to the top of the criminal underground. I kind of wish that he had a bit more importance in his role in the series, and that he his character had been expanded upon some more, not necessarily with more back-story, since I kind of liked the mysterious sort of resonance about his character, but more so in terms of just being fleshed out some more in his personality. He may not have been on screen very often, and when he was on screen it certainly wasn't for very long, but he was always interesting to watch, and the scenes he was in were always that much more interesting for me just because of his presence, with him being their in the middle of the situation.

Anyone else have any thoughts on Sakyo, or any other villains in the series?

I always thought Sakyo had potential as one of the series' main villains, even though he wasn't the antagonist of a single arc. I agree with you that they could have given him more time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, lately I've been re-watching YYH with subtitles this time, since I never watched the first series fully in Japanese with subtitles, and while I will always prefer the excellent dub, I figured I'd make my 15th (or is this my 16th....) time going through the series a little different by watching the show in its original format with its original voice actors....except with subtitles since I can't speak Japanese (though, I swear I could probably understand every general thing that is being said in the series without any subtitles after all of the times that I've watched it, myself).

So, yeah, as for my thoughts on the Japanese voice acting, while I have grown too attached to the English voices to ever stop loving the dub for YYH, I have to be honest and give credit to the Japanese cast for being quite good. That's actually saying something coming from me, since most of the time I'm indifferent towards Japanese acting, where I honestly find a lot of voices to be indistinguishable from other ones and not the least bit memorable. In certain cases, though, the voice actors are doing real character roles, and by that I mean that they use very distinguished and unique sorts of voices that would specifically fit the animated character that they are voicing, but which wouldn't sound like how somebody would talk in the real world (One Piece is the absolute best when it comes to Japanese "character" voices, IMO).

Anyways, I really like Chiba Shigeru's voice for Kuwabara, the only voice that I will personally admit to being better than in the dub, if only because Chiba Shigeru conveys both the humorous and serious sides of the character perfectly, whereas Chris Sabat's more "rusty" voice for Kuwabara is initially grating before he grows into the voice for the character to the point where its much better fit for him (which, IMO, isn't really until late into the Dark Tournament arc). Hiei's voice is about as good in quality as Chuck Huber's portrayal of the character is. As for Kurama, while I'm so used to the fact that characters of his type often get a female voice attached to them despite their gender, I'm also very indifferent to it by now, and to be honest I don't really feel too positively or negatively about his voice either way. I will say that I personally much prefer John Burgmeier's voice for Kurama, though, as he really captures the intellect and sophistication of the character in his portrayal of him. With his Japanese VA, I get the sophistication part of it, but not necessarily the intellect part when it comes to that voice.

As for Yusuke (who's voiced by Nozomu Sasaki, which is surprising considering how he has voice acted in many popular anime, from stuff like anime films like Akira all the way to anime TV series like Death Note), I feel that his voice really captures the "street-punk" side of his character and all of his odd natures and tendencies, but at the same time I'd be lying if I said that Justin Cook's awesome one-liners and overall performance for the character (especially when it comes to the sarcasm) easily wins me over each and every single time.

Overall, though, I'm enjoying watching this series subbed just as much as I do dubbed, thus proving that its greatness transcends just what language I'm used to watching it in.

[Aurora]

My current favorite anime at the moment! Just a fantastic series!

And this is coming from a someone who thinks 96% of anime is shit. 

[Angus]

Wow, must be counting anime by the episode or something.

[Aurora]

Even the ones people say are more "serious" attempts like Princess Mononoke and Perfect Blue. They're all shit. But, that's just me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Being someone who doesn't really care for Miyazaki works, I certainly wouldn't call any of them shit, either (also, I haven't seen Perfect Blue so I have no opinion on that anime). They have a lot of effort put into them and they do at least each have themes to portray and characters to develop, so I at least have respect for stuff like that even if they aren't my cup of tea.

As for most anime being shit, that is indeed true, but I would argue that 90% of just about any form of media is complete shit, all the same. With video games and films, we usually only tend to remember the good ones, but for every great movie that I have seen I could easily name 9 terrible ones, and the same goes for video games, novels, and any other form of media (I'd say music but I haven't listened to enough, but I'm sure that Avaitor or someone else could attest to there being plenty of terrible songs out there for every true hit). I haven't had an awful lot of exposure to anime, but in general I find most that I watch to be pretty boring and I never get past a few episodes or in some cases a few minutes, but at the same time I can't deny the great ones that I have seen their true quality, either, such as Monster, Ninja Scroll, Cowboy Bebop, and various other, of course including Yu Yu Hakusho which I would still argue to this day is the pinnacle of the battle shonen genre as far as any anime go (its also consequentially my personal favorite anime title, even though I can admit there are better "quality" anime out there, though none appeal to me quite as much as YYH does).

[Aurora]

Yeah, your probably right Princess Mononoke just wasn't for me then. It is probably better than most of anime shows, or movies I see.

Your right 90% of everything being crap, but for anime....well let's just say my 96% is generous on my part! I could go to 99%! But, I say 96% since, there most be some more good. Even thought it's not looking like it.

To be honest, I can let an anime pass if it entertains me. Naruto, Bleach, Pokemon, Beyblade, Medabots, Zatch Bell and Yugioh are all awful, just terrible but nostalgia couple with the plain fun action scenes these series have keeps me watching them. Yeah, guilty pleasures!

Now for something I genuinely like hmm.........BOBOBO! and Cowboy Bebop. Thoses are nice! Also a shoutout to Miyazaki's other films with "Spirirted Away" being my favorite. FMA the original series wins points with me too.

Meh, what can I say? I prefer Western animation.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I too prefer Western animation on the whole (though admittedly I have been quite distant from animation in general and out of touch with most recent shows in the past couple of years). I was just pointing out that when you think about it there are a ton of duds in every genre. The reason why I personally wouldn't say that 99% of anime is crap is because I haven't seen all that many anime, being that I'm not really a fan of anime as much as I am a fan of a few really well-done anime shows and movies. For me though, in general, I'd say that about 75% of the anime material that I have watched is stuff that was either too boring or too terrible to interest me and I basically dropped those series, and another 5% is the boring or terrible shows which I actually bothered to finish, to my regret....

About 15%, though, are fairly decent shows and movies IMO, and the last 5% are stuff that I would truly call great and memorable works. When I think about it, though, these percentages aren't terribly too far off when I think of other media, such as films and books and the like (though, admittedly there is probably a slightly bigger percentage of stuff that I like compared to stuff that I dislike or hate).

[Aurora]

Maybe, I'm just bitter about anime. 

Since, this a Yuyu Hakusho thread can someone answer these questions for me!


In the Dark Tournament saga why is that over the 50 years that have passed both Toguros still remains a B-level demons? They wished to be the strongest demons they could be on Earth correct? Which, on Earth is B class. So, why in the heck aren't they a A-class, or S-class by then? Seems a bit of a plothole to me. Unless, I'm missing something. 

[Dr. Insomniac]

In the Dark Tournament saga why is that over the 50 years that have passed both Toguros still remains a B-level demons? They wished to be the strongest demons they could be on Earth correct? Which, on Earth is B class. So, why in the heck aren't they a A-class, or S-class by then? Seems a bit of a plothole to me. Unless, I'm missing something. 

Maybe the wish was a double-edged sword, and made it so that they were stuck at that level or something. After all, when have wishes granted by demons ever been a complete success?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Isn't the cap for demons on this side of the gate B class? I thought that came up at one point, it even upset Hiei because he wasn't A class, IIRC.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

**Resident YYH expert on duty**

Toguro couldn't become stronger because he had nobody to challenge his skills nor did he have a certain unknown blood-line type power-up that a certain character would get later on. Toguro became the strongest demon on Earth, indeed, but in the process since he was so strong there was no way he could get stronger unless he had tougher opponents around to face and overcome, which he mentioned only a couple of times in the series (its classic shonen logic, but I suppose it does make more actual sense than most other shonen "logic"). The whole reason he was interested in Yusuke is because he saw potential in him to surpass him, especially when he realized that he was Genkai's disciple and was sure that Genkai would pass on most of her power to him eventually.

Isn't the cap for demons on this side of the gate B class? I thought that came up at one point, it even upset Hiei because he wasn't A class, IIRC.

That cap has more to do with going through realms (Also, Hiei was actually a higher class demon as a child but after getting the Jagan eye implanted by Shigure his power was drastically drained until he worked his way back up to the top at the end of the series). Koenma explains in the Chapter Black arc that the realm is designed to keep out the baddest of the bad guys among demons, so its meant to block any demons of B class or higher. However, for some reason related to how it works, lower class demons that are more minute problems ranging from C class and lower can pass by unnoticed, but it was decided by Spirit World that it was a minor issue compared to letting potential planet-destroying demons into the Human realm. In fact, if you think about it the other "small-time crook" sorts of demons that are of lower classes that could pass through the barrier are pretty much what the job of the Spirit Detective was created for in the first place, hence why all of Yusuke's early foes in the 1st few arcs are all much weaker classed demons.

The whole point of Sakyo's involvement in the Dark Tournament was to win it and be granted the ability to open up a massive portal between the human and demon realms, and in many ways it should be pointed out that he was the real villain of the Dark Tournament arc. Toguro was really more obssessed with Yusuke and admitted that he no longer cared about whether he could make it to the demon realm or not, as his new focus was to draw out Yusuke's potential. Genkai even pointed out that he actually went out of his way to guide Yusuke along, in that it was his involvement that insured that Yusuke wouldn't make the same mistakes that he did in his life which it was pretty heavily implied that he deeply regretted yet accepted that he couldn't ever take it back. This is what I love about Togashi when it comes to villains. The guy can really create multi-layered characters while still making them come off as seriously threatening opposition to the main heroes.