Let's Talk About... Yu Yu Hakusho

[Spark Of Spirit]

It really is a strong turnaround. Can't wait to really dig into this. It was pretty hard to choose pictures for it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Spoiler

"I'm going to be a scientist!"

"Watch my magic snap." *Snap*
"Come on, that's just a cheap camera trick!"

"Okay, I'll see you guys in a couple of days!"
...
"You think he knows the way to the mountain?"
"Doubt it."

"Wow! Now this is a big waste of space."
"You know, Yusuke, some people like the wilderness."
"Yeah, old hermits and people who don't know how to talk to girls."

"We can't leave. We just got here."
"Yeah, we're lost and the birds ate our breadcrumbs."

[close]

In addition to everything else, the humor is back in full force. Outside of a few lines there really wasn't any in the last arc.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh god, yes! The dialogue in the English dub is golden. I don't care if it's not what was said in Japanese, I fucking adore the English adaptation. Justin Cook is just priceless. And I do consider both versions to be separate shows (and Yusuke especially is a different character in the dub, with similar values to his Japanese counterpart), despite still loving it either way.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The dub is certainly funny, but even the original Japanese manages some good laughs in there, too. I mean:

Spoiler

[close]

The Saint Beast arc had Kuwabara making a fool out of himself between fights, but that was about it for comedy. And it got old rather quickly. Rescue Yukina keeps the drama and the action, but remembers the adventure and comedy of the earlier half of the Spirit Detective arc. It's here that Togashi finally hits his groove.

[Avaitor]

"Yusuke's Sacrifice" was a pretty good way to end the arc, even if it's about as average as the arc itself. Suzaku has overstayed his welcome at this point, so just getting him out of the way was worth it. Besides that, Yusuke and Keiko's ending scene was a nice way to wrap up her annoyance towards Yusuke having to bail on her.



"Lamenting Beauty", meanwhile, feels promising. Not only am I aware that the upcoming arc is worth the investment, but the wraparound is strong. And this also introduces Kuwabara's sister, who I've always been a fan of. You gotta love how tired she gets of him, too.

Yeah, this is a super brief post, but eh, I just worked 12 hours and I'm not feeling much for writing. I'll read your stuff soon though, EK!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

21. Yusuke's Sacrifice

And thus we end the Saint Beasts arc. And....yeah, that was pretty dry stuff. Aside from having the main four characters team up for the first time, we really made no significant progress, here. We learned nothing new about Yusuke, Kuwabara (aside from the fact that he's an Oingo Boingo fan, apparently), or Kurama, and while it was nice to see another side to Hiei, it was not well-explored in this arc. The theme of Yusuke being too knuckle-headed and not thinking things through, thus potentially repeating the accident that nearly killed him in the first episode, does finally come to its logical stretch point in his confrontation with Suzaku, at least. Being forced to rely on his own life energy due to having sapped his Spirit Energy reserves leaves him in a near death state. Not only did he just barely manage to take out Suzaku, but if Kuwabara and the others hand't gotten to him in time, he would have been dead for good.

Naturally we will slowly start to see him change beginning with the next arc, but at the same time my issue is that this resolution of the theme of Yusuke's wreckless nature is not explored in any interesting way here. We just see his fight with Suzaku, and nothing of relevance happens to the character before that. The "they need me" bit from the last episode was a good moment for him, as I already pointed out, but it ultimately didn't feel like it was as effective of a scene as it should have been due to the lack of adequate build-up beforehand.

And that's pretty much all that I have to say about the final episode of this particular arc. Overall, it was mostly just really boring.

Saint Beasts Arc
Overall Rating: D
Summary of Thoughts: Uninspired, lifeless, and dull are the three words that most prominently come to mind when I think about this arc. It's not outright terrible, but it just does absolutely nothing of interest despite a fairly decent and promising start. The villains are lackluster, one-dimensional, and not well thought out, and aside from a few interesting moments, this arc really feels out of place in a series like this that typically excels at taking conventional set-ups of the genre and doing incredibly interesting things with them. This arc was neither interesting nor well-written in any regard, however. It's easily the weakest arc in the entire series.

22. Lamenting Beauty

Now we're finally getting somewhere. It's not an especially extraordinary opening to an arc, admittedly, but after what we just got through, it's a very welcome change of pace. Koenma entrusting a videotape of the next mission to Hiei to deliver to Yusuke is a bit questionable, but while this probably wasn't the intention, I've always liked to believe that he secretly did this on purpose because he knew that Hiei would find out about where his sister was being held, anyways, and doing this would somehow allow Koenma to directly track Hiei and see how he would respond to the situation, and if he could potentially be a permanent ally to Yusuke and the rest of the group. It's really far-fetched thinking on my part, but hey, it is what it is.

And, yeah, let's not beat around the bush here. Hiei has a cute, helpless, innocent sister who looks and acts absolutely nothing like him, but this direct contrast only comes off all the more interesting because we can now identify with Hiei and see that, through his own apparent family member, he clearly has a soft side and a heart to him. We don't get to learn too much about Yukina herself, in this episode, other than that despite being a demon she is a very kind person and really seems to love nature and innocent animals like birds (she's a regular Snow White). Her ability to unwillingly have her tear drops turn into magical spherical ice crystals that are worth a fortune does feel a bit contrived, but it's not too hard to buy given how diverse an array of demons this show has, and as we've seen so far, Togashi can get pretty creative with their different abilities, so it does seem to fit into a world of this nature. Of course, for now, Yukina and her expensive ice crystals are merely a MacGuffin to give the heroes an objective to reach in this arc, but I do believe that she has a lot to say about Hiei's character as we learn more about both of them later on.

I really love how Kuwabara just has such a soft spot for innocent women who he finds to be attractive. He was yapping on about how he didn't want to help Yusuke on another mission, but changed his mind in a heartbeat once he learned about Yukina from the videotape. And honestly, given his moral code of character as well as how he jumped in to help during the last arc, I think that he would have offered to help in the end, no matter what, despite what he claimed. But, still, there isn't a better motivator for the guy than a damsel in distress. Yusuke, in contrast to Kuwabara and Hiei's motivations, is really just doing this because it's his job (and I find it amusing how Keiko believes that being a Spirit Detective means that Yusuke is working as an intern for an actual detective agency), and almost feels like a side character in this particular story-line, but he will have his important character-defining moments and development as the arc progresses, as well, though ultimately I think that this one is more focused on Kuwabara, and even a bit more towards Hiei by the end of it.

On the side of the villains, we are introduced to the Black Black Club (or Black Book Club in the Viz translation of the manga), and one of its head members, Gonzo Tarukane, and his butler Satotoz (I know that he's not Satotz, but that's what I'm calling him because the resemblance is fucking uncanny). I just love this aspect of world-building. We have seen that there are others in the human world who are trained to use Spirit Energy and are aware of the presence of demons, but over here we now see that this is something that has reached the criminal underground world, and is perfect set-up to find out how the criminal underworld itself is actually a heavy influence on the activity of demons in the human world, which will lead directly into the Dark Tournament arc.

Furthermore, we are introduced to the Toguro Brothers, and on that note, I'm going to have to disagree with a comment that Talon made earlier about Suzaku feeling like a huge step up from the villains that came before. He was definitely the strongest villain that Yusuke had faced up to that point, but he didn't feel the least bit memorable in his presence at all, and in the end he just felt like a slightly stronger version of Gouki or Rando. The Toguro Brothers, on the other hand, just have such an ominous feeling to them from the get-go, as if they could easily take down all of Yusuke's former foes at once without even breaking a sweat (and that would be either of them, individually). That scene with Yukina in particular is very telling, and my favorite scene of the episode. Rather than try to beat the tears out of her, they understand that she has very human emotions, and instead go after the birds that she loves and crushes them right in front of her. This understanding of human nature of their own, and not just relying on pure brawn like previous villains, really sets them apart from the pack of generic bad guys. I also love how we already get subtle nuances of Toguro being a more three-dimensional character when he actually turns to acknowledge Yukina and says that she can make it easier on herself by giving up hope. At first glance, when you don't really know the character, that just seems like it might be generic bad guy talk. But I think that he's genuinely speaking from experience (given his own troubled past that we'll learn about later). He's essentially saying that if you aren't strong enough to protect yourself, you might as well just give in to the wills of others who have control over you if you hope to have any bit of salvation at all. The advice itself is wrong, but Toguro's intentions do seem to be like giving genuine advice rather than just being a dick for the sake of it. Maybe I'm reading too much into that scene, but I don't think so given how three-dimensional Toguro turns out to be as a character.

Finally we end the episode with Yusuke and Kuwabara being bad-asses. We also get what I consider to be a very important scene for one of the big themes of this arc in which they question why a demon would sell-out his own kind and protect humans who he knows to be torturing a demon, to which he basically responds that humans sell each other out all of the time, so why can't demons? This really helps establish the parallels between the two species, and that they aren't truly different at all outside of appearances and physiology. It's a very big theme that will be prominent in the Dark Tournament arc and downright central to the Chapter Black and Three Kings arcs. I thought that it was pretty clever to set it up in a small, but also pretty fun and entertaining scene of this nature.

[Spark Of Spirit]

And now we're officially into the final arc of the Spirit Detective saga, Rescue Yukina!



The second episode this week offers a lot more than your average episode of the Saint Beast arc did not only setting up the villain and the stakes, but also giving our heroes (Kuwabara mostly) ample motivation for seeing this mission through to the end. What I like about this arc is how Yusuke and Kuwabara have fallen into step on how to be Spirit Detectives (well, a detective and his partner, anyhow) and exude experience and confidence they didn't quite have in the earlier arcs. I mean, sure, Yusuke acted confident but he never really was doing anything other than playing a part. Here, he seems genuinely motivated and good at what he does for the first time in the series without needing someone to twist his arm.

On the other hand, the Toguro Bros. are easily the most intimidating villains our heroes have gone up against so far. They aren't confident fools like Rando or Suzaku (I actually think the Saint Beast arc would have been better if Rando was the boss somehow instead of Suzaku, honestly. He's a better version of the same character), lunkheads like Gouki or Genbu, or plain annoyances like Byakko. Without even throwing a single punch so far, they already feel very ominous.

Kuwabara's lady fixation was played for jokes before. We get it, he's an old school guy looking for the perfect woman, but it didn't feel like there was much there. But even from the moment he first sees Yukina, it feels like something entirely different for him. Sure you could say Kuwabara is really the main character in this arc and Yusuke is the wise-cracking sidekick, but, then, it's earned. Kuwabara has needed this development since he lost to Rando and Yusuke has needed another layer shown to him since about the same time. We didn't get any of that in the last arc, but we're already getting it here and this is only the first episode of the arc.

Hiei as well, we only got a small glimpse of in the last arc, but now we start to learn about him. He had a sister? Is she anything like him? What's their relationship? Since when does Hiei care about anyone other than himself? Rescue Yukina is the first time we really see that Hiei is more than just the really fast guy with crazy sword skills. And he doesn't have to have many lines to show it.

If it isn't obvious yet, I'm a big fan of this arc and it is one of my favorites in the entire series. This episode was really good, but next week will be even better.

[talonmalon333]

I'm going to have to disagree with a comment that Talon made earlier about Suzaku feeling like a huge step up from the villains that came before. He was definitely the strongest villain that Yusuke had faced up to that point

To be honest, that was really the extent of my point. I was just saying that Suzaku seemed like a bigger deal than the others because he was the most powerful foe yet. Didn't really mean to get at anything about characterization. He's not much to write home about in that category, though I do kind of like his last words. And yeah, you really do get the feeling that Toguro could crush any of Yusuke's past opponents within minutes.

Spoiler

Which, of course, turns out to be very true. And I'm not even talking about Toguro at full power. I mean that tiny degree of power he used to face Yusuke and Kuwabara in the Spirit Detective arc (which I think was 20%). I genuinely believe he could have annihilated Suzaku using only 20% of his strength.

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yusuke: "The family jewels have not been stolen."

Man, now the show's really brining out it's A-game. I wish that more people would join in on the discussions, but either way I'm excited to talk about each set of episodes every week from this point.

[Avaitor]

I can't wait for tomorrow!

Also, I just got volume 2 in the mail from Amazon. It's about time I finally got it in! This will be fun to go through.

[Spark Of Spirit]

This was a great week of episodes. I had problems finding enough pictures to use.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Unfortunately I won't be able to do full write-ups for these episodes tonight, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. That said, I'll still be happy to discuss these episodes like usual.

And goddamn, I do love Sakyo. He's a really underappreciated villain. While Toguro is the main muscle for Yusuke to deal with, this guy is clearly the mastermind working from behind the scenes.

[Avaitor]

Man, they look badass here. Makes sense, since "The Toguro Brothers Gang" is a fine episode, just as "The Deadly Triad" is.

The thing that makes these episodes feel so fresh in comparison to the Saint Beasts arc is brevity. It seems like everyone involved realize how these villains are meant to be stock bait for the real enemies- the Toguros- and that not too much time should be spent on them. Because really, it took only 5 minutes of episode time for the Toguros to prove their worth in comparison to every other villain thus far, and wow is it awesome.



And EK is right, Sakyo is a hell of a villain. He doesn't do much yet, but it's obvious that he's a step ahead of everyone, and it's fun to figure out how.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Just check how much less drab this arc is to the last one:









What I enjoy so much about these episodes is how much faster it is from the previous arc with our heroes not wasting any time to do what they're supposed to do. There's no showing off (other than boasting) or wasted words (other than jokes), just the mission and how they plan to attack. It also helps that the villains, both demon and human, are given a lot of character and invest us in their schemes while our heroes are plowing through a frickin' demon army to save Hiei's sister. Speaking of Hiei, we learn a bit more about him as well as his sister, and how they really couldn't be more different.

Another cool touch here are the fight scenes. Not only are they directed by someone who obviously loves their kung-fu flicks, but the animation, voice acting, and dialogue show that everyone involved are having a ball. This is not only the point where Yu Yu Hakusho hits its stride, but the point where the anime staff have all settled into what they know best. It only gets better from here.

Of course, it isn't over yet. While Yusuke and Kuwabara wasted no time at all plowing their path through the mansion, they still have one final obstacle left. And it might very well be the toughest they've ever faced.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

And man is the English dub dialogue great in these episodes. There are just far too many quotable lines from episode 24, alone.

I love how in contrast to the last few arcs, and many other shonen in general, this arc has fun and has Yusuke and Kuwabara kick the crap out of the lesser minions like one big joke. You also get a sense that aside from being stronger, they are more experienced, now, and have really gotten a hang of the whole Spirit Detective gig, which goes a long way toward keeping this arc from feeling same-y like before.