‘Yu Yu Hakusho’ remains evocative, enjoyable
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Alright, time for me to date myself.
If you, like me, are of a certain age, the phrase "Toonami at its peak" will likely mean something to you.
For everyone else, here's a brief explanation: Cartoon Network, in the late 1990s, began a programming block they called Toonami. It's not much of an exaggeration -- if any -- to say that Toonami is what made anime mainstream in America. The block ran an astonishing number of heavy-hitters that many Millenials -- yours truly included -- grew up with and still hold in nostalgic high regard.
One of those shows is today's subject, "Yu Yu Hakusho" (YYH).
An old action-fighting anime that ran in Toonami in the early 2000's, YYH was in many ways a less popular contemporary to the Dragonball franchise, which far more people have likely heard of and enjoyed.
But where Dragonball's various iterations and series were sprawling monstrosities that famously featured 10-episode power-up sequences and some truly absurd fights, YYH was much more trim and focued: the entire series is just 112 25-ish minute episodes. Peak, "big boss" fights typically only lasted three or four episodes from start to finish -- with one notable exception -- and, I would argue, YYH focused far more effectively on the world-building and atmosphere than the various Dragonball series. Its characters were also more endearing, in my opinion, although it is hard to argue against the Dragonball franchise's all-timers.
An overall overview of the story: a teenage tough-guy brat with a whole lot of trauma dies while saving a young child from getting hit by a distracted driver, which encourages Spirit World to give him another chance at life.
He returns to life but serves as the Spirit Detective -- assigned various cases by his Spirit World boss, Koenma.
Along the way he makes friends and allies while developing his own abilities and stopping some bad guys -- a formula which is, let's face it, pretty bog-standard.
What's decidedly NOT bog-standard, however, are the villains of the show. While season one is largely forgettable and can be a bit of a slog on rewatch, the show hits its stride with season two -- the Dark Tournament -- which, even upon recent rewatch some 20-odd years later, holds up as a genuinely entertaining and satisfying watch.
Season two's Younger Toguro and season three's Shinobu Sensui are, in my opinion, two of the most complex and enjoyable villains I've ever seen.
Despite YYH being a now 30-year-old show, going off its original Japanese run, I don't want to spoil what makes these villains so engrossing -- they really are worth the watch, even if it's just a Youtube summary or something.
The second season is definitely the best of the show. I personally prefer the more urban fantasy vibe of the third season, which is much darker in atmosphere, music and plot -- but the third season does run into some weird animation issues and suffers from a level of reused footage that, just barely, reaches the level of being noticeable and obnoxious. By comparison, the second season…just holds up. There's no other way to put it. You can tell it's old -- but in a finely aged way.
The fourth and final season exists in kind of a weird space and I didn't really enjoy it much when I was younger. But as I've aged, I've found that the fourth season has aged with me. It makes for a wonderful capstone on the series, as the main characters are forced to, basically, grow up and figure out what they truly want out of their lives. It offers a level of conclusion that these types of shows rarely achieve -- you see the characters in young-adult protagonist mode, it's rare that, despite their character growth, they ever really truly grow up.
I think that's one reason why it's so effective that the show is as short as it is compared to many action anime. The characters don't exist in an interminably dragged out 800 episode adolescence. They have their adventures, grow as people and then develop their lives and move on, and it's up to the viewer to reflect on the characters and imagine how their lives turn out.
I know a lot of my opinion on this show is nostalgia, to be clear -- far more than something like "Twelve Kingdoms," which I've previously written about for Throwback Thursday, which I think is genuinely underrated and needs more eyes.
YYH is what it is. It's unapologetic, wears its heart on its sleeve, and makes great popcorn background for when you just want to space out and watch people blow stuff up in the heavily stylized vaguely-kinda-sorta martial arts way that anime is so good at. The characters are memorable and enjoyable, and the villains will turn popcorn background into attention-grabbing and resonant foreground.
What more can you ask for?
As a final piece of trivia, by the way -- the author of the manga, Yoshihiro Togashi (who is also the author of "Hunter x Hunter") is married to Naoko Takeuchi, the author of "Sailor Moon" in a true example of a power couple.
"Yu Yu Hakusho" is available for streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu as of this writing -- and possibly others, depending on licensing, which can fluctuate. The show sports an 8.5 rating on IMDB, and I would consider it roughly PG-13 for content.
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Arianna McKee is the Design Editor for The Express.