#Netflix Yu Yu Hakusho

[dramastream]

Yusuke Urameshi & Kazuma Kuwabara YU YU HAKUSHO 幽遊白書, Ep.01

[itagakimizuki]

YU YU HAKUSHO (2023) ep 4

[trendingdrama]

JUN SHISON as KURAMA in YU YU HAKUSHO (2023) dir.Shō Tsukikawa

[divineandmajesticinone]

Hiroya Shimizu as Karasu

YU YU HAKUSHO (2023) I 1.04

[moonlightsdream]

DRAMAS IN 2023: 32 | Yu Yu Hakusho (2023) — dir. tsukikawa sho

[liberonoya]

YU YU HAKUSHO (2023) | EP01 Kitamura Takumi as Urameshi Yusuke

[nightblood]

I think it was a smart choice to merge Hiei's part of the opening arc with the Yukina Rescue arc because it lets us ignore his weird characterization at the start in favor of the more aloof personality he has for most of the series.

And I'm fine with them condensing Genkai's training arc. But they didn't really build up her dynamic with Yusuke, so it was just weird for her to give him the Spirit Orb. Especially this early on.

I'm only three episodes in, so I don't know if she's really dead. But it'd be a waste if she is.

[emeraldspiral]

My hot take on YYH Netflix is that normally condensing a story this drastically would not work at all, but YYH is kind of a special case because Togashi very obviously was making things up as he went along and it takes quite a while for YYH to settle on what the story actually is.

Like, if you just saw the first episode you'd probably think the show is about Yusuke's ghost shenanigans and the story's over when he comes back to life. They spent a whole four episodes on it in the anime, and that's after cutting out a lot more issues from the manga. But there's not a lot that happened while Yusuke was a ghost that's of any consequence to the rest of the story, and anything that was, like Kuwabara becoming a good student, didn't need Yusuke to be a ghost in order to happen. Like, while he's a ghost he learns ghost abilities like being able to possess people or talk to them in their dreams, but when he comes back to life he doesn't retain any ghost powers like Danny Phantom, he gets completely different abilities that he only learns about after coming back to life.

So it really doesn't feel like we missed out on anything by having Yusuke get resurrected right away and establishing the threat of demons invading the world from the beginning and having that be the reason Koenma wanted to resurrect him, rather than introducing all of that only after Yusuke came back to life. It doesn't feel rushed, it just feels like it knows what the point is and gets to it.

The story also doesn't really dally around with the idea of Yusuke doing actual detective work, which also gets abandoned pretty quicky in the managa/series. He doesn't get any gadgets or get assigned a bunch of different cases that all just end up being a gauntlet for him to fight through, he pretty much just has the one big case. I think combining the Three Thieves arc with the Rescue Yukina arc is actually a significant improvement for the story. Cause like, originally the Thieves arc was just a vehicle to introduce Kurama, but then Hiei ended up becoming a regular character too and his appearance in that arc was totally inconsistent with everything established about him later. It makes so much more sense for his motive for participating in the heist to be his sister, rather than wanting to take over the world with an army of demon slaves. It also doesn't feel like we lost anything of value by cutting out the 4 Saint Beasts arc when helping Hiei rescue his sister is a much better motive for him to cooperate and bond with the others than Hiei just being forced to do community service. It also eliminates that awkwardness of Hiei kidnapping Yusuke's girlfriend and trying to turn her into his demon slave and then being instantly forgiven by Yusuke the next time they meet and never addressing it again.

Where I feel like it went too far was bringing in the Dark Tournament stuff. Having Yusuke drop everything to go train with Genkai for a whole month in the middle of a case while Hiei apparently makes no progress toward finding his sister just didn't make any sense. We didn't get to know Yusuke well enough to really understand how much growth he had to go through to earn Genkai's spirit wave or what emotional barriers he needed to overcome to beat Toguro. We didn't get to know Genkai long enough for her death to hit as hard as it should. We didn't get to see enough of Yusuke and Kuwabara's bond to understand why it made more sense to kill him instead of Keiko in order to motivate Yusuke. We didn't get as much build-up for the opponents the fab four would be facing and things like Kurama's fox form and Hiei's dragon are just there and not things that that were built up as their only desperate options to have even the slimmest chance of survival.

It really feels like a shame that they didn't go with the original ending of the Rescue Yukina arc where the Toguros took a dive on Sakyo's orders. Like, if they were worried about not getting a second season, the story already had a perfectly satisfying conclusion that you can just accept as an ending as long as nothing else comes afterward to tell you the bad guys are still alive. But Toguro, Bui, and Karasu are all clearly unambiguously dead by the end of the Netflix series and all the important plot points about Toguro and Genkai's past has already been put out there, so there's no way to go back on that and do the Dark Tournament proper with a more fleshed out story and fan-favorite characters now.

Hypothetically, if there were more seasons though, because the vast majority of the series is already covered and there's really only two arcs left that are too distinctly separated to be combined I could see a season 2 and a season 3 that adapt Chapter Black and the Makai arcs in a way that's more satisfying.

Like, S2E1 could cover just the House of 4 Dimensions, ending with the reveal that Genkai has been brought back to life, or at least can contact the living world in order to continue Yusuke's training and prepare him for what's coming.

S2E2 would be Yusuke and the gang looking for Sensui and his goons and we'd get the battle with Doctor in the A plot and Kuwabara's battle with Seaman in the B plot.

S2E3 would be Seaman's backstory and revelations about who Sensui is and what he's trying to accomplish. Kuroko could maybe be introduced here to fill in some of the exposition gaps. The episode would end with Sensui finally appearing and kidnapping Kuwabara, with Sniper foiling Yusuke's attempt to rescue him.

S2E4 would be Seaman taking the gang into the tunnel, Game Master would be skipped over and we'd get straight into Yusuke vs Sensui, ending with Yusuke's death.

S2E5 would be Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei breaking out of containment to avenge Yusuke and Yusuke awakening to defeat Sensui, only for Spirit World to suddenly turn on him once they realize he's related to Raizen. The season would end on a cliffhanger with Yusuke being forced to go on the run into demon world.

S3E1 would then open with Yusuke already in Demon World, wandering around until he eventually finds Raizen. Meanwhile back in the human and Spirit Worlds everyone is dealing with the fallout and the episode ends with Hiei and Kurama being summoned/deported to Demon World.

S3E2 would be Hiei and Mukuro's stories.

S3E2 would be Kurama and Yomi's stories, with Kuronue from the movie thrown in there as well.

S3E3 since we skipped the Dark Tournament we can't have Kurama recruiting old opponents under the guise that they'd be serving Yomi only to turn the tables and reveal that they're all loyal to Yusuke. And besides, it was kind of a waste in the original series to set Kurama, Hiei, and Yusuke up on opposing sides and then just instantly resolve the conflict by having Yusuke propose a free-for-all that everyone gets on board with. This could be a great opportunity to have some actual conflict between the three with Yusuke fearing what the other two Kings would do with total control of Demon World, Kurama not wanting to work for Yomi but having to pretend like he does, and Hiei not knowing what he wants.

S3E4 would see the three kingdoms go to war, until Yusuke and his friends learn about Spirit World's plot to pit them all against each other to further their own control of Demon World and convince the kings to set aside their differences and unite to battle Spirit World.

S3E5 would see Spirit World defeated and King Enma overthrown and replaced with Koenma. New policies would be put in place respecting the Demon World's right to self-govern and allow its citizens to travel between worlds. Yusuke and Kurama would finally be able to return home to their loved ones while Hiei would stay in Demon World to be with Mukuro.

[crewdlydrawn]

Oh nothing, just my tiny feisty demon boy and his hellish flamey dragon pet. ^-^

Hiei using jaou ensatsu kokurhyuuha, the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, vs Bui in episode 4.

[natesune]

POV you hear Smile bomb on the radio as you start watching the live action yu yu hakusho.

[dramastream]

YU YU HAKUSHO 幽遊白書, Ep.01

[lookingforcactus]

Live action Yu Yu Hakusho liveblog: ep 1

This is so much fun. Nostalgia time. 13 year old me is LIVING

Warning for like whole ep 1 spoilers and all

Yusuke and Botan look great which I already knew going in from the gifset that informed me this show exists lol, but it's delightful, bc the characters in this show aren't necessarily the easiest to translate to live action

Botan is adorable. Her hair is adorable. And I'm delighted to see that Yusuke's hair is the Correct amount of Poufy

Plot twist: Kuwabara hot. He looks great actually. Translated nonliterally compared to Yusuke but v well. The actor is selling me on it too, fun casting

Kuwabara was always hard for me to watch in the original bc he set off my vicarious embarrassment soo hard. Glad they're less committed to making him the constant source of painful comedic relief here lol

KOENMA PACIFIER REVEAL I LOVE IT

Laughed out loud for real tbh

Idk if I'm a little disappointed he's not a baby but like live action would make that ridic hard to do in a lot of ways so I don't blame them at all. He's in his adult form which makes sense. Still damn glad they kept the pacifier it is RUINING his dignity and I love it

I also don't blame them for cutting the flying oar effects. A lil sad but the initial transition to Reikai looked great so they're forgiven

Yusuke. "No thanks." I knew it was coming and the delivery still made me laugh out loud. Just dropped it in there. Yusuke I love you please see a therapist

Fight scenes are v creative and p epic

Seriously they do a really good job of making Yusuke's fighting style as a human believable, fun to watch, and effective. He rly does come off as just kind of a natural fighting genius (with practice ofc)

Sakyo in ep 1? Weird but I'm not opposed. The wavy hair is kinda freaking me out though ngl. Smoothness was just such his THING in the show it's distracting

Really liked Yusuke's mom's introduction (not that it was flattering to her as a character) but I wish they'd done more with her in the rest of the ep. Her power hug at the end is great tho

Show's slowing down a bit but it's fine I'm still having fun, the nostalgia power will get me through basically whatever

NO PUU!!!! This is tragic but I Do understand this as an adaptation choice. Reluctantly. Tragic tho.

Bug under guy's face effect EPICALLY creepy

That said I keep watching the motion of him and the other demons in this ep and thinking about Hayao Miyazaki said about the disgusting cruelty of using effects technology to make the scary scary inhuman monsters just fucking. look and move like disabled ppl

Seriously I keep seeing flashes of the appearance and movements of people I know with developmental disabilities (particularly this one guy I know with cerebral palsy but also I've worked in care work for disabled adults and just kind of a lot of people in general) and. I hate this. Especially as a person who DOES have a (nonvisible) developmental disability myself. This is such a rising trend in horror/sff/fantasy tv/movies/video games and I hate everything about it. Hayao Miyazaki was right this kind of attitude and shit really is "an insult to life itself"

Anyway fight scene cool

I love Keiko btw. Her crying and blaming herself! Her face when Yusuke comes back! Also Yusuke "I'm not gonna die just bc you talked shit" pffft jackass (affectionate)

DEMON CREW CAMEO AT THE END

Kurama looks pretty good. Goki actually looks wayyyy better than he did in the anime imho, which I did not see coming.

Effects on Kurama and Hiei's fighting looks surprisingly great. They pulled off the rose whip way better than I thought they would, and did some great wirework with Hiei's speed and fighting style

That said....Hiei...oof. That hair was always gonna be a Challenge but I think their ambition here did uh. not play off rip. Hopefully it'll look better later on

[academyofbrokenhearts]

Kissing the entire Yu Yu Hakusho main cast on the mouth.

[grooveisintheheart]

Bruh the Yu Yu Hakusho Live Action is pretty much 3 seasons of the anime frankenfucked into 5 hour long episodes. They did not waste time with a single FUCKIN' thing.

Scapped every single tournament because who got time for all that shit 👁👄👁 Not meeeeee

[asterofthevoid]

The way that the live action is like watching the Saint Beast arc, the Save Yukina arc, and the Dark Tournament arc simultaneously.

Aside from lamenting the short span of these episodes, the bits that they kept are iconic. The little details are like nods to existing fans.

The fight scenes are impeccable.

And most importantly they got the boy's dynamic right.

Yu yu hakusho: Helen's revenge

Highlights:

BOTAN

iPad of Darkness

Gouki's tummy

Kuwabara

KARASU

keiko and yukina tag team

Dislikes:

- lack of shizuru

- keiko got nerfed a bit

-spirit orb was too easy to absorb

I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

[historioddity]

Okay, because I've been like half avoiding it in general irrational fear, I haven't actually like, watched the trailer for the live action Yu Yu Hakusho series - but I sorta just did, with the sound off because I should be working.

A trailer is a terrible thing to base this off of but it kind of looks like they mashed the various arcs together? That could be interesting, you know, if my half watch got any of that right.

That said, I no longer have consistent access to Netflix, so I'm not sure if or when I'd actually get to watch it when it drops